Guitar Boz

Boz Scaggs is not a typical guitar hero. He’s been playing the instrument since high school, but eventually he focused instead on singing in that velvety soul man groove of his, leaving the guitar work to various hot-rod session players. Scaggs didn’t even play at all on his best-known album, 1976’s “Silk Degrees.”

So it’s with renewed, and unexpected, commitment to the guitar that Scaggs is touring this summer with a six-piece band that includes only one guitar player: himself.

“It makes the whole live experience more vital to me,” says Scaggs, who tonight headlines the Greek Theatre. “It means a smaller ensemble, which means more freedom to play, more variety each night. Every night’s different because there is a lot more improvisation, and I’m probably enjoying that aspect of touring now more than anything else--playing guitar. I can’t wait for the show to start.”

His rebirth as a player was at least partly inspired by the 1997 recording of “Come On Home,” his Grammy-nominated collection of surprisingly gritty blues and R&B; covers that had Scaggs taking most of the lead guitar parts himself. Which was strange behavior for a man once too intimidated by his hired guns to play on his own albums in the mid-’70s.

Scaggs, 55, says the style of music on “Come On Home” inspired a return to a kind of playing that came naturally to him. The album mixed a handful of originals with classic songs written by the likes of Jimmy Reed and Sonny Boy Williamson--songs that were inspirational to him as a young singer.

“It led me to want to explore that more,” Scaggs explains. “I only play a basic ‘60s style of blues and rhythm-and-blues guitar. I had been doing some blues and rhythm and blues gigs around the San Francisco area, where I live, for fun with some friends. It just seemed a natural extension of the things that I was doing at the time.

“It was really fun to perform that record,” he explains, though his next album, in the works over the last several months, will be a return to the R&B-flavored; pop of such signature hits as “Lido Shuffle” and “Lowdown.”

Scaggs still lives in San Francisco, where he opened Slim’s nightclub earlier this decade. In December, his 21-year-old son, Oscar, died of an overdose of heroin.

The singer--who has one remaining son, Austin, a year younger than than his late brother--won’t discuss the death in interviews, but reflected on the loss in an article he wrote for the Feb. 22 issue of Newsweek. “I am trying to put together the pieces of my own life and his,” Scaggs wrote. “There are so many unanswered questions when one so young dies suddenly. So many parts of his life were in transition and unresolved.”

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Scaggs began seriously exploring music as a teen in Dallas, joining friend Steve Miller in a neighborhood rock band. Miller, who would later become a pop star himself with hits like “Fly Like an Eagle,” was a year older than Scaggs and had been playing guitar since he was a young child.

“I came to see Steve as a mentor in a way,” Scaggs says. “He taught me some guitar stuff, and I wanted to be in his band, and eventually was. We played off each other pretty well as guitar players.”

Both eventually attended the University of Wisconsin, where they continued sharing a band, but Scaggs left school and spent the next three years traveling abroad. It was while settled in Stockholm that a message from Miller arrived inviting Scaggs to join his new band in San Francisco.

Scaggs arrived in San Francisco and rejoined Miller for a fast-paced year that resulted in two Steve Miller Band albums.

“Steve and I had been friends, really best friends for some time,” says Scaggs. “That experience, that intense year that we had together with me being in his band, tested our friendship. We parted amicably, but it was clear we were heading in different directions.”

His first solo album, in 1971, was a straight-ahead R&B; collection produced by Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. But it was the release five years later of “Silk Degrees,” with its sophisticated romantic soul-pop, that finally connected with a broad mainstream audience.

“It just turned out to be one of those things that had all the right components,” says Scaggs. “It was the right time and place for that rhythm section, and the right time for our shared interest in what was then contemporary rhythm and blues. That was the catalyst that made that click. It’s what set us up to make our mark at that time.”

BE THERE

Boz Scaggs and Dave Alvin will be at the Greek Theatre, 2700 Vermont Canyon Road, Los Angeles, at 7:30 tonight. Tickets are $15 to $49. (213) 480-3232.