An Argument for Slow Blues

The accepted modus operandi for bands these days is to record an album every year or two and then tour to promote it. To go three or more years between releases probably would mean commercial suicide for most musicians, but not for Angela Strehli.

A blond, husky-voiced blues singer from Lubbock, Texas, Strehli released her last album--”Blonde and Blue” on Rounder--in 1993. Still, she has built a devoted (if cult-sized) following. Performing live, mainly in clubs and at blues festivals, she is a gutsy dynamo, especially with her current band, the four-piece Soul Drivers. They’ll play the Coach House on Wednesday night and the Blue Cafe in Long Beach on Thursday.

So what’s behind that snail-like recording pace?

“I try to make each record as good and original-sounding as I can, so I don’t have many of ‘em,” she answered with a laugh, on the phone from her home in Novato, about 25 miles north of San Francisco. “It’s hard to get together a great bunch of songs, at least for me. Others seem to be a lot more prolific at it.”

She’s working on a new album, though, and expects to release it early next year on Antone’s Records, a blues label she co-founded in Texas with club owner Clifford Antone in 1986.

So far, Strehli has relied primarily on outside material, but with this album, that may change.

“It’s intimidating to me to show people, even in my band, my own songs,” she said. “It’s taken me some time to get over that. But I’m excited right now. I feel like I have the right ideas that I’m turning into some pretty good songs.”

Her creative engine was jump-started when she decided to include a shuffle on the album. Wondering which shuffle to choose, she suddenly realized that there was no reason she couldn’t write one herself.

“I thought, ‘Gee, anyone can write a shuffle about almost anything. You can even write a silly one about your dog!’ So that’s what I wound up doing, and it’s called ‘Miss Tonya.’ ”

Strehli was baptized into the blues like few other middle-class white gals. Hooked on the late-night gospel and blues shows she heard on the radio (she cites Otis Rush and Magic Sam as her prime influences), she spent years in local bar bands, including one called Southern Feeling that included guitarist Denny Freeman, Jimmy Vaughan’s mentor.

Then she met Clifford Antone.

“He was a local blues fan who saw me perform at dinky dives in the area. He thought [the musicians around Austin] deserved a better, bigger showcase, and if folks were educated in the blues, they’d dig it and support us. The idea was to expose people to the Chicago-style blues masters and showcase the best local talent as their opening acts.”

Back then in the mid-’70s, when disco and top 40 were thriving, everyone thought Antone was nuts for opening a blues club, Strehli recalls. But he cut the ribbon in 1975--the first show at Antone’s was by zydeco king Clifton Chenier--and the club is still cooking today. Over the years, it has become a springboard for a new generation of blues acts, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan.

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Strehli worked as Antone’s right-hand person, managing club operations, mixing the stage sound and later kicking off Antone’s Records (her own debut, “Soul Shake,” appeared on the label in 1987; “Dreams Come True,” a collaboration with fellow Texans Lou Ann Barton and Marcia Ball, followed in 1990).

But she said her real education, and biggest thrills, came from hanging at the club with the likes of Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed.

“I gained so much by getting to know these incredible people. Sometimes Clifford would bring these blues legends down for a whole week, to play three- to five-night stands because nobody on the national circuit would come all the way down to Austin for just one night.

“So I had this incredible opportunity to become friends with so many of the heavies. Muddy even helped me improve my singing by showing me how to hold onto words at the end of a phrase. I’ll tell ya something, it was like having a big family of blues lovers.”

* Angela Strehli and the Soul Drivers, Lou Ann Barton, Peculiar Boogie and Big Deluxe play Wednesday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $12.50-14.50 (714) 496-8930. Strehli and the Soul Drivers, Barton and Kid Jonny Lang play Thursday at the Blue Cafe, 210 Promenade North, Long Beach. 9 p.m. $8. (310) 983-7111.