Jr. Walker’s Still Riding ‘Shotgun’ : Pop music: The artist, whose honest, down-home style of rhythm and blues has long propelled him down a less-traveled road, plays tonight at the Coach House.

Jr. Walker always was an anomaly at Motown Records--blacker, funkier, greasier, more rooted in traditional R&B; than in the high-gloss stylizations of such Motown superstars as the Supremes, the Miracles and the Temptations.

Most Motown acts evoked mental images of silk tuxedos, polished Italian shoes and Hollywood glitter. Walker’s honking tenor sax and raucous, down-home vocals brought to mind bubbling pots of chitlins, wild rent parties and Dixie Peach Pomade.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson and the others have enjoyed fruitful, productive careers post-Motown while Walker has faded into the background. His record releases, few and far between, have gone unnoticed among all but the hard-core faithful.

He was born Autry DeWalt in rural Arkansas. His press biography lists 1942 as his year of birth, although during a recent phone interview from a hotel room in Washington, D.C., he claimed to be 58 years old. Like his music, his personality and outlook on life remain rooted in the simple values he grew up with. Polite and good-natured, he nonetheless is a man of few words, to the point that he refuses to install a telephone at his home.

He was inspired to take up the tenor sax during the ‘50s, a golden era of R&B; honkers, shouters and screamers. The sound and style of the time still reverberate in his music.

“I was listening to all the tenor players,” he recalls. “I had some stuff on Earl Bostic; he was blowing some nice stuff back in those days. Also Illinois Jacquet, Lester Young and all those people. Boots Randolph, I really liked him. ‘Yakety Sax’ is really what got me interested in playing. You can’t find records by them anymore. I go to see what can I dig up in record stores, but there’s nothing there.”

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Walker played in his high school’s marching band and turned pro at age 16 when he joined a local group called the Jumping Jacks. The band settled in Battle Creek, Mich., became Jr. Walker and the All Stars, and recorded a handful of singles for the small Harvey label in Detroit before hooking up with Motown mogul Barry Gordy, who placed the group on his Soul subsidiary label in 1964. “Shotgun,” released early the following year, became a smash hit, the song with which Walker remains most associated.

“The people still want me to play the old hits, man. If I do something new, they like it, but they want to hear mostly the old songs. I’m doing mostly the same thing anyway, but now I’ve got a couple of girls singing with me.”

He seemed oblivious to most trends in modern music and wasn’t even aware that Los Lobos recently recorded a cover version of “Shotgun.” But he did have a word or two to say about the state of rhythm & blues in the ‘90s.

“A lot of them have got off into too much rap, and that’s taking away from it. That doesn’t get enough music to me; they don’t get enough feeling in it. We’re gonna see if we can come back strong and put the feeling back in.”

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He said he and the current lineup of All Stars have been in the studio wrapping up an album that he wants to release this summer. But--as he is with most subjects--Walker was hesitant to talk too much about the project.

“We’re gonna go ahead and put it back where it belongs, put it back on top,” he said. “At least we’re gonna try. I’ve got a plan I’m gonna start this summer. Everybody wants to know what it is, but I don’t want to say too much about it. I’ll just lay back and do it. When you tell people what you’re up to, everybody’ll jump on it and do what you say you’re gonna do.”

* Jr. Walker and the All Stars, the John Huessenstamm Band and the Topy Fiske Experience play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, starting at 8. $16.50. (714) 496-8930.