God bless Duane Allman’s guitar playing on Boz Scaggs’ “Loan Me a Dime”

By Steve Newton

Sometimes I’m a little late to the game, case in point being Boz Scagg’s version of Fenton Robinson’s “Somebody Loan Me a Dime”.

I just recently came across this song by accident on YouTube, and I gotta tell ya–it blew me away. Before now I’d mostly known Boz for his disco-y 1976 album Silk Degrees–the one with “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle”–that my older sister turned me on to.

But Scaggs recorded this tune, with the shortened title “Loan Me a Dime”, for his self-titled second album of 1969, at Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, with “the Swampers”, the session musicians made famous in the lyrics of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.

The great news is that–as well as Swampers Barry Beckett (keyboards), Roger Hawkins (drums), and David Hood (bass)–Scaggs recruited none other than Duane Allman to play the lead guitar on “Loan Me a Dime”.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard more soulful blues playing in my life. Lemme know if you agree.

Check out my previous blogs on the other guitarists whose playing I’ve asked God to bless: Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham, Blue Öyster Cult’s Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, Steely Dan’s Jeff Baxter, and the Outlaws’ Huey Thomasson.