From Out of Past Comes . . . Who Knows?

“The Best of British Blues” tour is a calculated risk on the part of its principals. The concept is simple enough: Assemble a group of British rock heavyweights from the ‘60s and ‘70s on one stage and see what happens.

The players are singer Eric Burdon (the Animals, War), guitarist-singer Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), drummer Aynsley Dunbar (Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, David Bowie, Journey, etc.), keyboardist Tim Hinkley (Humble Pie), bassist Boz Burrell (King Crimson, Bad Company) and guitarist Micky Moody (Whitesnake).

Those names carry a certain box-office appeal, but will the show fly musically?

Don’t look to the participants for any guarantees about what to expect when the show hits the Coach House stage tonight.

“We’ll just have to see what happens with this,” Burdon said recently by phone from his manager’s home in Palm Springs. “Until I actually meet these guys and rub palms in the rehearsal room, I’m not going to know what works best.”

In fact, while the tour--the brainchild of L.A. talent agent Shawn Ahearn--will take these veterans across the U.S. through June, as of the first week of May they still hadn’t started rehearsals. And, as Burdon indicated, some of them have never met, much less played together.

“Originally, the idea was to pair me with [former Rolling Stone] Mick Taylor, but he declined and we got Alvin Lee instead,” Burdon said.

“I’ve done some TV with Alvin, but it was a long time ago. I was exposed to him the same way everybody else was--through the movie ‘Woodstock.’ . . . Tim Hinkley is the London jam boy, [and] Boz is the ultimate jam bass player. I remember seeing [Burrell] in the pubs--he’d come off a Bad Company tour, go home and take a shower and wander from pub to pub looking for the next jam.”

Added Lee, in a separate phone interview from his home in Barcelona, Spain: “Nobody’s quite sure of how this will all work out. That’s the fun of it, though. It’s a trial thing. There’s been talk of doing Japan and everything else, but I said, ‘Let’s see how everyone enjoys it first.’

“I’ve played with Boz and Tim quite a bit. Micky I know, I’ve seen him around. Eric’s a good blueser. Anybody that’s his age and still around I have admiration for. Anyone that lived through the ‘60s and is still coherent is on a winning streak. He’s done some great songs and has a great attitude for singing them.”

Indeed. Burdon, born and raised in Newcastle, is considered along with Van Morrison one of the two finest rhythm and blues stylists ever to come from the British Isles.

That’s his gritty, soulful voice, backed by the Animals, the New Animals and War, on such classic-rock radio staples as “House of the Rising Sun,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” “It’s My Life,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “Sky Pilot,” “San Franciscan Nights,” “Monterey” and “Spill the Wine.”

In recent years, Burdon has collaborated with British jazz-blues pioneer Brian Auger and former Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger in touring groups, as well as fronting the Eric Burdon Band.

For all his commercial and artistic success, Burdon, 55, is a man with distinctly ambivalent feelings about his celebrity--part of the reason he’s held a lower profile in recent years than might be expected from one with his credits.

“I had a tremendous ride of the fame game in the ‘60s,” he said. “Fame is a bitch, and once you’ve danced with her you don’t see things the same again. People don’t react to you the same way.

“You’re the center of attention wherever you go; people expect you to sing for them all the time. I’ve had many personal problems stemming from that,” he said. “But who gives a damn--here’s a guy complaining about being famous, right? Give me a break! But after 10 years of fame, I wanted to get off. I wanted to feel normal things, I wanted anonymity.

“I’ve managed to walk a fine line between being the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and all of that and [being] the guy who fuses with local people, who likes to just go out and ride my Harley.”

Burdon also has trouble reconciling himself to the way the music business works in the ‘90s.

“I’m at my best when I’m in the studio, I’ve got my [headphones] on, I can hear the air going through my head--that’s when I start to create,” he said. “I bring sketchbooks and notebooks and ideas with me.

“ ‘Spill the Wine’ is an example of how I work in the studio, with no preconceived notions of what I want to do. I was lying on the floor, Lonnie [Jordan, War keyboardist] hit this lick, and I just leaped on it. Unfortunately, they don’t make records that way anymore. It’s like, ‘Demo this, rewrite this, recut this.’ ”

Burdon lays the blame for the current situation in music squarely on the shoulders of MTV.

“MTV has turned everything upside down,” he said. “MTV has negatively effected fashion, music, social graces, movies, everything.

“When I was a kid, I worshiped John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, and I thought that’s the way things would always be--there’d always be these grand old men, these spokesmen, the people who have the experience. Not anymore though. If they came to a label today with what they had back then, the response would be, ‘How are we gonna make a video out of this?’

“But we’re not gonna find our future in any of that, in outer space or a computer chip or anything,” he said. “It’s in our hearts and our souls.”

*

Lee, 51, had his own bad times with fame. An early guitar hero, the former Ten Years After front man came to prominence with his show-stopping performance of “I’m Going Home” at Woodstock.

After the “Woodstock” film came out, Lee was playing arenas packed with fans screaming for “I’m Going Home” night after night, much to his chagrin.

For years, he refused to perform the song--and even refused to perform any Ten Years After material at all for a time after going solo. More recently, though, he has come to realize that Woodstock, “I’m Going Home” and Ten Years After are part of his legacy.

“I realized that people pay good money to come and see me, and they want to hear their favorite songs,” he said. “When something hits you in the face every day, you learn to accept it.”

The Alvin Lee Band, a power trio very much in the mold of Ten Years After, tours Europe regularly and Lee has released two albums this year.

Burdon has lived in Southern California on and off since the late ‘70s and now resides in Palm Springs. He says his strongest fan base is right here in the Southland.

Lee and Burdon embark on separate European tours after the current project runs its course, but neither rules out continuing with “Best of the British Blues.”

“If it works and it’s really successful, we might take it to foreign places,” said Burdon. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

* “Best of the British Blues” (with Eric Burdon, Alvin Lee and others) and Raging Sun play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $25. (714) 496-8930.