Some musicians find commercial success, and then stay on top forever. McCartney, Springsteen, Sting in pop; Duke, Ella, Miles in jazz. But there are far more players who make some money, then go on to carve out musical careers that give them pleasure. They earn a living with their music, but they’re not necessarily household names.

That’s British pianist and Hammond B-3 organist Brian Auger, who has achieved all sorts of musical accomplishments in a career that recently passed the four-decade mark. He won the Melody Maker jazz poll in 1964, and last year was honored with a congressional Lifetime Achievement Award for his “contribution to the American art form of jazz.” But you probably never heard of him before.

The first concert Auger ever played in the States was an April, 1969 gig at the Boston Tea Party. He doesn’t tour a lot, which makes his upcoming local gig such a treat. He appears next week at Scullers with his acid jazz band the Oblivion Express, featuring his son Karma on drums and his daughter Savannah singing.

“erbue Hancock I learned to play on a player piano,” he says, laughing. “We had one at home, and my dad had a huge cupboard full of piano rolls of operas, concertos and some ragtime. I was able to hang on to the underside of the keyboard, and stand on these two big pedals, which made the roll play. I would pedal away like some crazy cyclist, the notes would play, and after a while I began to recognize the fact that the keyboard was divided into octaves. I didn’t know what octaves were at that time, but I realized if I played the same notes in the scale at the top of the keyboard, then I could play along with the piano rolls.”

       A couple of years later, he started listening voraciously to his older brother’s collection of American jazz records: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Fats Waller.

“I also used to listen to ‘The Jazz Hour’ on American Forces Network in Germany on an old radio,” he remembers. “I ran an antenna out of my bedroom window and suddenly in comes Stan Kenton’s Big Band. Oh my goodness! They had all sorts of people, including one of my favorite piano players, Oscar Peterson. I was blown away by him and wanted to play like him.”

Auger eventually formed a trio and started playing piano in small London jazz clubs. But destiny called out one day when he was walking past a record shop and heard something on the outdoor speakers that spun him around.

“It was an absolutely thrilling, amazing sound,” he says, still excited when he tells the story. “I rushed inside and said, ‘What is this? What is this?’ They showed me the album cover to ‘Back at the Chicken Shack’ by the great Jimmy Smith. I became an instant fan of the Hammond organ, and talked my bank manager into lending me enough money to buy one. That really changed my life. Suddenly, instead of just playing jazz piano in the jazz clubs, I was able to get gigs in the rock and R&B clubs.”

He also developed lightning-fast playing technique and a canny understanding of the complex instrument’s capabilities.

Fate called again when British blues singer Long John Baldry heard Auger play in Manchester, and asked him if he wanted to put a band together. The resulting Steampacket featured two young backup singers named Rod Stewart and Julie Driscoll. Stewart, of course, would go on to rock superstardom, and Driscoll would later be the singer in Auger’s Trinity, a band that combined rock, pop, jazz, blues, and R&B. (Her take on “I’ve Got Life” is thrilling.)

Auger’s next group, the Oblivion Express, crossed over into jazz and rock fusion. After some well-earned downtime in the late 1980s, he got a call from former Animals singer Eric Burdon, with whom he soon joined to play keyboards for a few years in the Eric Burdon-Brian Auger Band.

“But I wanted to put the Express together again,” says Auger. And this time he was able to add family — son Karma on drums, and his youngest daughter, Savannah, singing.

“My kids are my jewels,” Auger says proudly. “They’ve always been my pals, and they still are. A lot of people ask me, ‘Isn’t it really heavy playing with your kids?’ But it’s not, it’s the best time I’ve had in my life, so far.”

Auger has gone from classical to straight jazz to rock to fusion. His plan for Scullers is to play a mix of old and new material.

“It’s basically funk-based jazz,” he explains of his current repertoire. “It gets called different names. When we play in Europe, the younger audiences call it acid jazz or drum & bass music. But it’s all under the umbrella of funk-based stuff that you can dance to if you want to, with enough solos so that you can sit there and just listen to it if you want to.”

       Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express plays at Scullers in Boston on March 18 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. Call 617-562-4111.

       Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@cnc.com.