POP MUSIC REVIEW : Dream Band Fires Up for the Blues : Fabulous Kim Wilson and His Super Backups Scorch the Coach House

Kim Wilson sure has a weird idea of what a vacation is.

For a decade and half he’s been fronting the Fabulous Thunderbirds, unquestionably one of the hardest-touring bands in show business. Then, whenever he gets a couple of weeks off, Wilson seems to turn around and hit the road again.

On other occasions when his band mates have been home sleeping it off, he’s either been out touring clubs with a lineup of his blues mentors, playing theaters in a ‘50s style with Dion, Graham Parker and Dave Edmunds, or sitting in with sundry other bands.

Despite a grueling schedule that runs his present solo-project mini-tour right up into the T-Birds’ next tour, it’s not hard to see why Wilson’s current musical outing might indeed seem like a holiday to the singer/harmonica player. The Kim Wilson Blues All-Stars, which appeared Sunday at the Coach House, was a veritable dream band of musicians’ musicians who played with a tone, style and content that was true to the pre-rock blues music Wilson loves.

Unlike the T-Birds’ forays into stardom, this music made no pretense of appeasing a mass audience, and Wilson didn’t need to rely on showmanship to reach the back rows. Indeed, at one point he declared, “I’m so relaxed I feel like Perry Como up here.”

However laid-back his stage demeanor was, he and his band were on fire musically for the bulk of their two-hour show.

Though Wilson’s home town of Austin, Tex., doesn’t want for great musicians, he turned to California to put his All-Stars together. He tapped Orange County guitarist Junior Watson from Canned Heat and the Mighty Flyers; current Thunderbirds pianist Gene Taylor (he’s also played with James Harman, the Blasters, the Red Devils and other Southland bands); Canned Heat and Tom Waits bassist Larry Taylor; drummer Richard Innes, who has played with nearly everybody and is in Kid Ramos’ band, and guitar newcomer Rusty Zinn.

Wilson has a new solo album on Antone’s Records, but he didn’t seem particularly concerned with plugging it. He did a handful of songs from the album but otherwise relied on older blues standards and obscurities.

Ranging from Charles Brown’s somber “Black Night” to the throaty chuckle of the T-Birds’ staple “She’s Tuff,” Wilson poured his powerful, resonant, definitively manly, voice into every tune.

The lengthy tour de force harmonica solo closing the band’s first set amply justified why other harmonica players consider Wilson to be at the pinnacle of their craft.

He played much of the number unaccompanied, relying on his simple Marine Band harmonica to deliver both a pumping rhythm and flying solo flourishes. Merely blowing as much air as he did was a Herculean task, let alone being musically brilliant on top of it.

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Watson, meanwhile, may be about as close to genius as one is likely to come upon on blues guitar. His playing was a supportive, but challenging, musical foil for Wilson throughout the evening, shining particularly on Guitar Slim’s “If I Should Lose You” and “She’s Tuff,” where his blustery solo sounded like nothing so much as an angry woodpecker chattering.

His solo spot on “The Hucklebuck” exploded with more invention than some guitarists manage in a whole career, taking wild flights of musical logic while always landing with an emotional sting.

Taylor’s boogie-woogie piano solo sure made one wish he’d move back to California from Canada. Zinn soloed with an incisiveness that showed far more seasoning than his 22 years of age would suggest.

Taylor held down the bottom with his usual understated persuasion, and Innes, a typically excellent but workmanlike drummer, was truly inspired this night, especially when embellishing Wilson’s harmonica flights.

Each of the two opening acts had something to offer, though there was one act too many given Wilson’s two-hour dose of musical generosity and the fact that many in the audience had to work the next day.

Openers Rod & the Pistons may need to incubate a while longer before they are front-line material, but the Orange County quartet’s set was a promising mix of muscular roots-rock and pop lyricism. Bassist John Frias was formerly in the Wild Cards, and that band’s bouncy spirit seems to have had a beneficial influence on him; his guitarist brothers, Rod and Darryl, and drummer Daniel Gonzales.

The over-amped, speed-note approach of both guitarists tended to obscure the group’s distinctive qualities, which are Rod’s vocals--particularly strong on the ballad “Dashed Upon the Rocks”--and the effervescent pop song crafting brought to bear on “Lisa’s Ex-Boyfriend” and “Car Trouble.”

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Second act Sam & the Moonlighters, another Orange County group, took an unusual approach to blues emulation: As much as everyone praises B.B. King as the king of the blues, you don’t often see bands trying to copy his repertoire and arrangements the way they do others from Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The Moonlighters do King’s routine to a T. They nearly mirrored the lineup of King’s band, including a horn section and Hammond B-3 organist, and, like King’s revue, they were tight, polished and propulsive.

Again, as King does, they began with an instrumental number that segued into King’s trademark opener “Let the Good Times Roll,” as leader Matt Samia strapped on his King-like guitar and stepped up to the microphone, which is precisely when things got squirrelly.

In singing King’s songs and mimicking his expansive stage moves, Samia forced a comparison that few artists could live up to, and he seemed particularly ill-suited to fill that big suit.

Where King always seems full of emotion and a sharing spirit, Samia came off as being merely full of himself. Every move and vocal line seemed calculated, mannered and inordinately self-satisfied, which are not always effective qualities in a front man.

When he stepped back from the mike, though, he proved a capable and fiery guitarist, exhibiting more sense of style and tone than most young players.