THE COMEBACK KID : David Ramos and His Big New Band Are Making This Round Count

Ever since David “Kid” Ramos tossed his Brylcreem-weighted hat back into the ring of the local music scene a few months back, things have been hopping again for the blues guitarist. His band, Kid Ramos and the Big Rhythm Combo, has been tearing up county and L.A. clubs, he and band-mate Lynwood Slim were flown to Minneapolis to record a live album, and it’s starting to look like old times in more ways than one.

When the Anaheim-raised guitarist was last active on the music scene five years ago, he was with the James Harman Band, one of the hottest club attractions ever to play in this county, and a respected, internationally touring outfit. Ramos’ peppery, forceful playing then has been cited as an influence by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, the Paladins’ Dave Gonzales and other guitarists.

It has only taken a couple of months for Ramos’ new band to find the sort of crowds and heated response he used to play to locally. He returns Friday night to the Heritage Brewing Co. in Dana Point.

During his years away from performing (he wanted time with his family, and still played in church and at occasional blues shows) the 34-year-old’s musicianship has only deepened. There are few guitarists in the country as thoroughly schooled in the traditions of the blues as Ramos, and fewer still who are willing to employ that tradition as an engine for their playing instead of a brake pad.

Blues guitarists generally break down into three categories. By far the largest one is that populated by players who think Z.Z. Top invented the stuff, and noodle away with no hint of nuance or style. Then there are hidebound traditionalists, who replicate the blues note-for-note off their precious old records, catching everything but the emotion and spontaneity that give the music life.

Then there are the players like Ramos, O.C.’s Junior Watson and a very few others who can dip their instruments into a can of any shade of blues and paint fresh, original pictures with them.

In a typical evening, Ramos will assay an atlas-worth of regional styles on his flamed maple ‘50s Gibson ES-5 guitar and make every one of them come up sounding just like him. Along with the drive and unguarded emotion of his playing making for a satisfying artistic experience, it doesn’t hurt to dance to it either.

He has a solid band in singer/harmonica player Lynwood Slim, drummer Richard Innes, pianist Fred Kaplan, bassist Tyler Pederson and sax player Spider Middleman. They are all players steeped in the blues, though they’re not the sorts that are likely to propel the music, kicking and screaming, into the next century.

That was something Ramos’ old affiliation, the James Harman Band, excelled at. Harman mixed his blues with a flask of Southern soul music, and could fly with the excitement of the moment so well that he sometimes seemed to be talking in tongues. Meanwhile old drummer Stephen Hodges (who also has recorded and toured with Tom Waits) would be trying to sneak funk beats or African polyrhythms into the music, while bassist Willie J. Campbell laid down some of the most intuitive and in-the-pocket low lines ever. This writer saw the band play hundreds of times, and they were the most consistently euphoric group I ever saw.

Ramos and the two other Harman band alumni will be getting back together for some shows this month when bassist Campbell will be visiting the state. The sole gig scheduled thus far is at Croce’s in San Diego on May 21, with a lineup that also features Lynwood Slim and the Paladins’ Gonzales. Ramos’ own band is signed to play the Golden Sails in Long Beach on May 22 and the Belly Up in Solana Beach on May 29.

One party who definitely will be missing from the shows is Harman himself. Calling from the road while on tour to promote his new album, “Two Sides to Every Story,” the singer maintained that there is only one James Harmon Band--his present one--and that he has no interest in performing with “hobbyists,” as he classes his former band members.