This Rough Ryder Now Easy Ryder : Pop: The vintage performer has gone from a hard-driving soul-rocker to a mellower R&B; and rock artist. He plays tonight at the Pacific Amphitheatre.

In the ‘60s, before the word ecology entered the popular vernacular, Detroit exulted in displays of power, equipping even family wagons with dual-carb 383 police interceptor engines with names like the “Golden Sonoramic Commando.”

That Motor City obsession with high-octane combustion also carried over to the driving beats of its music. And outside of Motown’s hit factory, the loudest, screamingest engine in town was Mitch Ryder. Backed by his Detroit Wheels, Ryder shouted his way through a series of mid-’60s hits that exploded with the energy of nonstop parties and drag-strip sorties.

The sounds of “Jenny Take a Ride,” “Devil With the Blue Dress & Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Sock It to Me--Baby!” set the tough tone of Detroit rock for years to come, eventually touching such disparate forces as Bob Seger and Iggy Pop. For more than a decade Bruce Springsteen has used a “Detroit medley” of Ryder songs to close his shows (Ryder joined him for one such encore in 1982). Back when “flower power” was starting to take hold with bands from other burgs in the ‘60s, Ryder’s own frenzied, direct performances of his hits would often result in his being pulled into the audience and having his clothes torn from him.

“Yeah, I’d have to say the Detroit rock sound is not as contrived as some other rock,” Ryder said with a laugh Tuesday, speaking by phone from his Michigan home. “It definitely got the job done.” His voice isn’t half as raw as one would expect from decades of unfettered screaming.

Tonight Ryder is one of KRTH-FM’s “Magnificent 7,” appearing at the Pacific Amphitheatre with Ben E. King, Ronnie Spector, Little Anthony, Brenton Wood, Lesley Gore and Freddy (Boom Boom) Cannon.

Most of the work he gets in America is doing such oldies shows, for which he has mixed feelings. While he still enjoys performing his old hits in his old dynamic manner--which at age 46 he wryly describes as “an amazing sight”--he balks at the notion implied by such shows that his creative life ended in 1967.

In the past 12 years, Ryder has released three U.S. albums (one produced by John Mellencamp) of highly personal songwriting, which went nearly unnoticed here. In Europe, however, his new music found wide acceptance. He has eight albums of new material available there and tours frequently, doing his original music.

“That, I think, saved me because when you make that changeover from being a pop artist to being a serious artist, if you don’t have anything to back you up in America you get depressed real fast, and you don’t even believe in yourself anymore,” Ryder said.

“Having that opportunity in Europe really helped me, my ego and psyche in terms of how I feel about myself as an artist. It’s allowed me to keep doing it. And it’s allowed me to learn a little humility too, when I come back to America and most of my work is only doing these revival shows. In Europe, I don’t have to be held to the form. Instead of trying to go for another ‘Devil With the Blue Dress On,’ I can just do what I feel like doing, and I can sell records doing that. I admit there’s not a huge fortune in it, but there’s a very strong, consistent following there.”

Ryder is hardly the only vintage performer to find a broader acceptance overseas. Pondering why, he said: “It’s very American to have disposable things. We don’t really have a permanent culture--it looks like we’re still searching for something. We grow so fast and change so fast. We tend to use things up, just like we use energy up and devour the world in terms of the environment and natural resources. That’s the way we treat our people and our souls. We just devour them until they’re burned out and move on to the next one.

“It’s like an insatiable hunger for discovery, and it transcends a lot of different areas in our daily living and our culture. I think that’s very American, and I’m happy to be a part of that, but it hurts me when it comes time to be an artist. So I get that gratification in Europe, and that’s just fine by me. I can accept that.”

Stylistically, Ryder’s new music is “right smack where I want it to be: R&B; and rock ‘n’ roll.” Lyrically, though, he’s moved a far ways from shouting, “Sock it to me, baby! Yeah! Yeah!” Rather, he said, “I’m in touch with some real feelings for a change, and I’m able to express them. I deal with the issues in my life. The songs are a sounding board for myself. I’ve addressed everything that I’ve touched that’s stirred my imagination.”

One of the records he’s proudest of is the 1978 “How I Spent My Vacation,” a largely autobiographical work based in part on the travails of the music business. (The title is a reference to some difficult years he spent away from performing.)

Ryder, born William Levise Jr., found his “thrill” at an early age listening to the black music that abounded in the Detroit area. When he began singing in his teens, it was with black bands in black clubs, where he said he had no trouble being accepted.

“I was so naive and honest about it, who could fault that?” he said.

His first record came out on a Detroit black gospel label when he was 16.

“My natural tendency was to gravitate toward urban black music,” he said, “It just seemed to be more immediate and virile. . . . I chose that, pursued it and attached myself to it.”

By early 1964, he had hooked up with a band called the Rivieras and caught the eye of Four Seasons’ producer Bob Crewe when he saw them steal the show from British sensations the Dave Clark Five one night.

Crewe managed to capture the band’s tear-it-up live sound in the studio, and it proved an irresistible force on radio.

“It wasn’t so much the particular songs we did but the way the song was delivered and the inherent, real accessible energy,” Ryder said. “When you hear them on the radio still today, they jump.”

The highlights of Ryder’s ‘60s career can be found on a typically excellent Rhino Records compilation, “Rev It Up,” which also includes several rarities and a version of Lou Reed’s “Rock and Roll” by Ryder’s ‘70s band, Detroit. Reed has praised Ryder’s version of the song as being the way it was meant to sound.

Ryder is very pleased with the Rhino compilation, not the least of his reasons being that “we’re actually getting paid now for those old songs. I’d certainly say Rhino has got to be perceived as fair compared to the nothing I got for 20 years, when I didn’t get a penny for those songs.”

While Ryder has some splendid memories of his Detroit Wheels days, including recollections of a series of New York concerts where he headlined over the fledgling Who and Cream, memories are about all he has. When he talks about the money he was cheated out of, he speaks in millions. More than that, he feels he was practically advised out of a career.

“Conceptually, our producer wasn’t prepared to accept that self-contained groups were the way to go. He was pushing for me to become a Tom Jones with a solo career. So I was manipulated and maneuvered into a position to where I agreed and broke the group up. . . .”

The result, in which Ryder was packed into a tux and shipped to Vegas, “was a terrible, terrible feeling, and it got stale real fast. I don’t hold that kind of act against Tom because he does it so well, but I think God only intended for there to be one Tom Jones, and I didn’t want any part of it really.”

Ryder tried to regain his footing by recording the Southern soul “The Detroit-Memphis Experiment” in 1969 with producer/guitarist Steve Cropper and by singing with Detroit, sort of a ‘70s Detroit Wheels with fuzztones that featured future Lou Reed/Peter Gabriel guitar whiz Steve Hunter.

Rather than be the featured star, Ryder tried to submerge himself in the band identity of Detroit, a retreat from the limelight that culminated in his leaving music and taking a warehousing job in Denver in the early ‘70s.

The reason for the self-imposed exile, he said, was drugs.

“I think that suffices to tell the whole story,” he said. “Drugs and recovery. And then back to drugs again. And then back to recovery. I’ve got three years in clean now, and I’m working real hard at it, and I’m happy with my life.”

Along with his three hard-to-find domestic albums, Ryder in recent years has been heard stateside on the novelty Irangate disc “Good Golly, Ask Ollie” and on Was (Not Was)’ “Bow Wow Wow Wow.” He has some new recordings, guaranteed to be released in Europe, that he’s hoping to land with an American label. Surprisingly, though Ryder spoke at length about the downside of the music business and the difficulties getting a foot in the door today, there was scarcely a hint of bitterness in his narrative.

“Who needs it?” he said. “Am I having a good time? Yes, I’m having a wonderful time.”

Mitch Ryder, Ben E. King, Ronnie Spector, Lesley Gore, Little Anthony, Freddy (Boom Boom) Cannon, Brenton Wood and the Monte Carlos play tonight at 7:30 at the Pacific Amphitheatre, 100 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $22. Information: (714) 634-1300.