He’ll Take This Job and Love It : Country music: Johnny Paycheck is back, glad to be on the road and in the recording studio. He will appear at the Coach House tonight.

People will try the damnedest things for the sake of a good time, but it was still somewhat surprising to see a few Billy Ray Cyrus zealots attempting to achy-breaky dance their way through a Johnny Paycheck concert last summer. The venue was a New England county fair--complete with chowder, corn dogs and family values--and the high-steppers were having a hard time negotiating a grassy incline newly slippery with evening dew: Their standardized moves just didn’t jibe with the music.

It certainly illustrated the distance between Cyrus’ glitzy pop and Paycheck’s old-school honky-tonk. Hunky and wholesome as a Ken doll, Billy Ray and his emotionally wan tune are primed to be all things to all people--the epitome of product. On the other hand, Paycheck’s raspy vocals and craggy visage are emblematic reminders of his weathered persona and flinty career.

After 37 years of cheating songs, drinking songs and jailhouse songs, of singing about the thorny troubles of working folk, he has created a singular and compelling American voice, which he will bring to the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano tonight. Billy Ray, eat your heart out.

“I think what you’re talkin’ about is stylization,” Paycheck, 51, said by phone before a show in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. “You’ve got to mold what you’ve got, try to style it into something uniquely yours. When people hear it, they got to know exactly who it is--and that’s harder than you think. Jones and Haggard and others have certainly done it, and I believe I’ve gotten it right a few times myself.”

Indeed, you’ll search all week to find someone who doesn’t recognize the string of hits from Paycheck’s mid-’70s commercial zenith. With its nuts-and-bolts parlance and kiss-off demeanor, his lunch-bucket anthem “Take This Job and Shove It” became a classic of self-affirmation. In “I’m the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised),” Paycheck (born Donald Eugene Lytle) cemented his rowdy character with a colorful account of being the family ne’er-do-well, irretrievably “lost in the devil’s ways.”

With bounce, perspective and attitude, these songs helped fan the flames of the then-withering honky-tonk sound. Some were written by Paycheck himself, including the infectious lock-up memoir “11 Months and 29 Days.” But he also knows the importance of staying abreast of other writers who are coming up with incisive tunes.

“I’ve always tried to keep an eye on where my bread is buttered,” he said with a chuckle, “and if you don’t have a song you can sink your teeth into, you’re in trouble. I’ve been lucky to have a good reputation with writers. My strongest suit is that of an interpreter, so it’s important for me to get ahold of the best material available. It doesn’t always come from Nashville either; there are guys all around the country hitting the nail on the head. I listen to the lyric first, then the melody. Then I try to perceive what I could do with it.”

That ear for lyrics goes back to his nearly forgotten ‘60s work on the Little Darlin’ label, including such extraordinarily vivid songs as “Pint of No Return” and “Problem-Solving Doctor” (a saloon-as-shrink’s-office tune sung by a mixologist who promises to “have your bar stool ready with a glass of Forget-her”), which made a case for the tavern being both haven and hellhole. Invariably, there were scads of pithy and playful social commentary strewn throughout the tunes.

“A lot of my stuff has had that humor thing to it, yeah,” Paycheck said, “and to me those things from the old days stand up strong. They were odd, but they were distinctive. Those songs came out almost 30 years ago, so I find it funny that type of material and that stylistic sound is now on the rise again.”

He’s referring, of course, to the neo-traditionalist sound of such so-called “hat” acts as George Strait, Randy Travis and others who have brought a more basic sound back to country in recent years.

“They’re doing what we were doing way back then,” he said. “Hank, George, Haggard--you can hear at least one of those guys in each of the new kids. I like Joe Diffie, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt, who I think sounds a bit like me. It’s like they’ve all come off the music’s foundation, and it thrills me to death because that’s the stuff I do best--the hard country. That’s what I came up singing, so I’m in hog heaven.”

If Paycheck sounds wholly psyched at the moment, it’s surely got something to do with his emergence last year from the Ohio state prison he called home for the two previous years. The time was because of a much-publicized aggravated-assault conviction stemming from a barroom skirmish. Roadhouses and gin mills have long been sanctuaries for quietly ditching whatever law might be after you, but they’re also infamous for their rough-and-tumble social climates. The man who once sang “Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill” is glad to have left the penal life behind to climb back on the tour bus.

“You’re not kidding,” says the singer with a nervous laugh, “lessons come around quick in there. I didn’t need to be slapped but once, know what I mean? Now I’ve got my life in order and my priorities straight--no drinking, no smoking--and I’ve got to tell you it feels real good.”

These days he’s working about 18 days a month, cruising the country playing local stages with a tight ensemble led by his brother. After a long spell away from the recording studio, he’s also scheduled to release some newly recorded songs in February.

“In the last two years I’ve been keeping all the material people have sent. I got prison songs and such as you might expect, but one that really sticks out is called ‘There Lies the Difference in Me.’ It’s a powerhouse song, and it’s gonna be a priority.”

The nomadic life is going to be amended as well. Like many fellow artists frustrated with the economic toll of getting from gig to gig, Paycheck has decided to let the audience come to him. He’ll be performing regularly at the Johnny Paycheck Theater, due to open in April, in the new country-music mecca of Branson, Mo. That tiny town has become a virtual Vegas strip of country-music clubs opened by everyone from Waylon Jennings to Johnny Cash.

“Two shows a day, six days a week,” he said. “It’s my 37th year on the road, and my age is catching up to me a bit, so I don’t think I’ll mind being in one place for a spell. But we’ll still be doing some road work now and then.”

And what if his theater hitch becomes rote? “I’m not worrying about that,” Paycheck said. “I still like my big songs; I still try to give ‘em a little zing. I’ve seen more than a few singers sleep their way through their medleys; if you’re going to do them like you’re sleeping, why bother? If that starts to happen, I guess I’ll just take that job and shove it.”

* Johnny Paycheck and the Honky Tonk Hellcats play tonight at 8 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $15. (714) 496-8930.