Coming in for a Landing?

Mired in bankruptcy and staggered by corporate and military-industrial downsizing, jilted by the Rams and deflated in real-estate values and confidence, Orange County is on a continuing mid-’90s downer.

The local morale could use a shot of some powerful stuff, and what better way to start than with a superb new cultural acquisition--namely, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, one of the most reliably excellent roots-rock and blues bands of the past 20 years?

The T-Birds will visit the Coach House on Thursday, which is nothing unusual for this perpetually barnstorming band. But it appears as if the Thunderbirds, long associated with the fruitful Austin, Texas, music scene, will be parking in Orange County when not on the road.

The band that singer Kim Wilson and guitarist Jimmie Vaughan launched in Austin in 1975 took on a tinge of Orange about a year ago with the addition of David “Kid” Ramos.

The muscular guitarist from Anaheim had established himself during his 1980s tenure with the James Harman Band as one of the most versatile, high-impact guitarists around. Early last year, Wilson tapped Ramos to stabilize a T-Birds guitar chair that had become a bit wobbly since 1990 with the departure of Vaughan and then his two successors, Duke Robillard and Kid Bangham.

Now Wilson is looking for his own local digs. Over the phone from a hotel in Spokane, Wash., the burly 45-year-old singer-harmonica ace reported that he has sold his house in Austin and is shopping for a place in the Laguna Niguel area, where his brother lives.

What’s more, Ramos said that the newest Fabulous Thunderbird, bassist Willie J. Campbell, is thinking of moving back to Orange County as well. Campbell played alongside Ramos in the Harman Band from 1981 to ‘88, then moved to Missouri, where his wife’s family lives.

“It’s funny how I filtered my way into [playing with] all Californians,” said Wilson, who grew up in Goleta, outside Santa Barbara. The California connection extends to keyboard player Gene Taylor, another alumnus of the James Harman Band. Taylor also played with the Blasters during the 1980s. He joined the Thunderbirds three or four years ago and now lives in Austin, as does drummer Fran Christina, a former Rhode Islander who is the only T-Bird without Southern California roots.

In their first decade, the T-Birds were a respected but struggling roots-rock bar band that featured Wilson’s swaggering, gritty singing and Vaughan’s lean, tasty guitar--elements that came together especially well on “T-Bird Rhythm,” a fine 1982 album produced by Nick Lowe. In 1986, the hit single “Tuff Enuff” propelled the T-Birds to MTV and out of the dives.

But the hits ebbed, and the personnel changes began. With the uncertain lineups and Wilson’s release of solo albums in 1993 and ‘94, it appeared as if the T-Birds might be at the end of the road.

But Wilson said that while the band needed an overhaul, he never thought of junking it:

“What kept us in limbo, despite the fact we were still working, was that we felt we didn’t really have a solid unit. We had a lot of great musicians come through, but I’m not sure everybody was on the same page all the time. Now [they are], and you can tell there’s a difference. I think the chemistry is better than it has ever been.

“I started this band 21 years ago with Jimmie, and that’s too much of an investment to make and just give up. Right now, what I’m trying to do with it is really make it credible again as a musical entity.

“I want to set up a future as one of those bands that transcend any fad, and you can be doing it forever. I just really wanted to make it what it was in the beginning, where people know [the band’s existence] is not hinging on a hit record or [needing] a record to be on the road.”

The attraction, Wilson said, should be “a good show of a lot of different kinds of stuff that you can’t get anywhere else.”

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The T-Birds were down to a three-man band--Wilson, Taylor and Christina--as they began work early last year on their latest album, “Roll of the Dice.” It’s one of the band’s strongest, crackling with the T-Birds’ typical grit and thrust.

It also offers some satisfying twists. Wilson shows a soulful dimension as a ballad singer, makes the old Them-Van Morrison hit “Here Comes the Night” sound fresh and personal and delivers an emotion-fraught, decidedly unbreezy rendition of the Disney chestnut “Zip a Dee Do Dah.”

Ramos joined the band in time to play on four of the album’s dozen tracks.

“We crossed paths a lot in the old days, and I just had a vibe, a feeling” that he would be right for the Thunderbirds, Wilson said. “I hadn’t heard the guy play in many years, but the way I felt about it was, ‘If he still sounds as good as he did in ‘81, it’ll be OK.’ ”

The matchmakers who brought Wilson and Ramos together were Larry Taylor and Richard Innes, two veteran Southern California blues players who had been touring with Wilson as he promoted his solo records. They let their buddy Ramos know that Wilson was interested in hiring a new guitarist for the T-Birds and informed Wilson that Ramos might be ready to return to the road.

For Ramos, the gig has meant resuming a rigorous touring schedule. He had left the James Harman Band in 1988 partly because he was tired of traveling.

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Joining the Thunderbirds “was an opportunity that, if I didn’t take it, I knew I would regret for the rest of my life,” said Ramos, who was playing part-time locally and working a full-time day job to support his wife and toddler son when the offer came.

“I worked a regular job for five years at Arrowhead Water, supporting my family, and bought a home. But you can work and do all those things and still not be happy if you’re just working to pay the bills,” Ramos said. “You know there’s something missing. It’s a sacrifice [to be away from home for weeks on end], but I’m doing what I want to do, playing for a living.”

The T-Birds gig gives the underrated Ramos, 37, a high-profile platform to perhaps win the wider acclaim he deserves. The solo recording career he began last year with the release of “Two Hands One Heart” will continue when breaks in the T-Birds schedule allow. With Wilson moving to Orange County, Ramos said, it’s likely the two will be able to work together on extracurricular projects and hook up for informal live sessions in local clubs.

Meanwhile, the T-Birds have given Ramos a chance to play such major gigs as summer festival in Alabama, where they opened for Santana.

“I was standing there watching [Carlos Santana] play, and during [another player’s] solo he came over and said he liked the way I played and [that] I played from the heart. That was nice.

“Nobody’s approached me to do any articles in the guitar magazines and things like that,” Ramos said. “Sure, everybody wants that, but I don’t particularly live for that. I really like to play, and I don’t have any ulterior motives. I’m a fan of the music before anything. Everybody wants notoriety for what they do, but I’m content with where I’m at.”

* The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Local Heroes and Alexander play Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $17.50. (714) 496-8930.