Memphis
Boz Scaggs recorded his 1969 Dixie-soul beauty, Boz Scaggs, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He made this sublime, mostly covers album within spiritual spitting distance, in the title city with an empathic band (including R&B guitarist Ray Parker Jr.) and the right local help (pianist Spooner Oldham, Al Green session organist Charlie Hodges). The supple, grainy throes of Scaggs’ voice invigorate old-school hits for Tyrone Davis and the Moments, and ballads by Tony Joe White and Steely Dan. Scaggs’ two originals, “Gone Baby Gone” and “Sunny Gone,” evoke his 1976 smash, Silk Degrees – if he had cut it for the local Hi label with the late, great producer Willie Mitchell.