Rock Home Songs: Baby-s Callin Me Home (#10)

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Good morning from the Great Smoky Mountains! I love being loyal to one hotel brand....they upgraded me to a suite. Heck, the bathroom is almost as big as a regular room! No need to go home yet, but I do have this issue of songs with “home” in the title. I finished off the country songs yesterday, so today the rock list begins. Here’s the first song, surprisingly. #10: Baby’s Callin’ Me Home - Steve Miller Band “Surprisingly”? Yes. What’s this doing so low on the countdown? There have been “regional scenes” in music history. I think we may have seen our last one with the Seattle/grunge movement in the 90s, given how formulaic things are in music now. However, the Seattle movement wasn’t the first. There have been a mess ‘o’ “scenes,” and one of the most famous was the San Francisco scene in the mid-60s. Was that significant? Just a little: Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who emerged from that era include Hendrix, Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Steve Miller. Now, if you remember, Miller raised a hissy fit (according to some)/was rightfully pissed off (according to others, me included) because he was inducted by himself, instead of “the Steve Miller Band” being inducted. I can see both sides, given that Miller’s most commercially successful era was...well, him. However, this song proves Miller’s point as well. That’s not Steve singing lead, it’s Boz Scaggs. Yes, that Boz Scaggs. (How many Boz Scaggses do we have in music? And no, his name is Ricky Skaggs! ) Scaggs, another rather successful product of the San Francisco era, was a member of the Steve Miller Band for two albums (both released in 1968) before he went on to a solo career. In his short tenure in Miller’s band, he wrote and sang lead on four songs. (A fifth song he co-wrote with Steve was recorded with Miller singing it on a later album.) While this isn’t the most rocking song he did (I’ll give that nod to Sailor’s “Dime-a-Dance Romance”), it’s probably the most enduring. It shows those soulful tones that would later get Scaggs platinum success with songs like “Lowdown” in 1976 (coincidentally, the same year and Miller’s massively successful Fly Like an Eagle album). Both guys are getting old (Boz will be 76 next week, Steve will be 77 in October). It’d be really cool to see them reunite one time. Meanwhile, we have the albums, which are pretty uneven (as most of the psychedelic-era stuff is) but do give us gems like this one. Baby’s Callin’ Me Home Written by Boz Scaggs Recorded by the Steve Miller Band (lead vocals: Boz Scaggs) From Children of the Future, 1968 Hate to see her cryin’: