And a Good Time Is Had by All

If the blues world were a great big high school, Mike Reilly would be a contender for the most-popular-kid award.

Now in his 25th year as a blues-rock professional, the lifelong Orange Countian hasn’t amassed a huge national following, but he has collected an impressive roster of highly credentialed musical friends, many of whom contribute to his third album, this one on a recently launched Laguna Beach label.

Among the singers and players Reilly has deputized are Taj Mahal and his crack rhythm section of bassist Larry Fulcher and drummer Tony Braunagel; Elvin Bishop (in whose band Reilly got his start as a touring musician); Garth Hudson of the Band; Bill Champlin of ‘70s rock band the Sons of Champlin; Mike Finnigan, longtime singer and keyboard player for Crosby, Stills & Nash; O.C. blues guitar hero David “Kid” Ramos; and an assortment of sparkling horn players, including Tower of Power alumnus Lee Thornburg.

In all, 20 guest players join Reilly for “Who’s Been Sleeping?” That kind of lineup shuffling can be a recipe for sterility or directionless sprawl, but on these sessions the playing is honed and full of punch.

As befits a veteran bandleader, the focus and stability come from Reilly himself. All hands take their cues from his earthy, amiable personality, and the result is an album that’s a fine marriage of sharp playing with a folksy spirit.

Reilly generates enough down-home feeling to fend off the slickness that otherwise might enwrap an album with production as clean, bright and expensive-sounding as “Who’s Been Sleeping?”

This isn’t the deep blues. Reilly is not one of those searing vocalists who can put you inside the skin of a soul in torment. It’s the fun-loving side of the blues, in which pleasures are relished, and the inevitable troubles that intrude are coped with in a spirit of equanimity.

The guy who comes home to find the locks changed in “Back on the Road to Texas” chalks it up to experience and moves on; the vitality and sense of humor it takes to greet rejection so evenly come through in a rousing guitar trade-off between Ramos, who plays clean, steely licks in the tradition of Eric Clapton, and Reilly, who answers with a cackling slide guitar. The track ends with a nice, funky rhythmic stutter of horns and guitars that’s a nod to Sly & the Family Stone, circa “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”

Reilly reinvigorates the Temptations’ funky hit “Shakey Ground” and turns to a couple of veteran Southern California songwriters--Eagles associate Jack Tempchin and Missiles of October front man Poul Finn Pedersen--for a couple of classy songs each.

He can’t match the gifted Pedersen’s vocal range or intensity on the terrific Missiles song, “Back to the Basics,” but, as always, Reilly’s good-natured, easygoing, not-too-mellow but never straining approach has its own appeal.

Finnigan contributes an instrumental composition, “Good to Go,” a hard-swinging blues shuffle in which Reilly plays his guitar with an Albert Collins-like clean needle-sting and the massed horns threaten to blow away the walls of Jericho, not to mention any number of under-qualified and overrated neo-swing operators.

Fans of blues and R&B; keyboards will have lots to relish; especially delicious is Hudson’s astounding organ playing on “They’re Takin’ Everything Away.” The song, by Tempchin and his regular writing partner, Eagles member Glenn Frey, is a wryly hangdog farewell to a litany of sensual pleasures that have been scientifically proven to be harmful to your health; Hudson’s playfully topsy-turvy organ gusts breathe a merry, bouncing carnival insouciance into the song.

Reilly’s writing also is sharp; the Latin-flavored “Lefty’s Bar and Grill” recalls his own near-disastrous mid-’80s bouts with the bottle in a humorous light, and “What Keeps You Rockin’ ” is a catchy, high-kicking blues-rock boogie that would fit in Bob Seger’s repertoire.

“Just Watch Me,” an optimistic song about hanging in there despite hardships, sums up the upbeat attitude of a musician who has kept company with lots of big timers (including Gregg Allman) without becoming one himself.

“I’ll play all day, I’ll play all night / I’ll play until I get it right,” Reilly sings on the chorus. He has gotten it absolutely right in delivering exactly what the CD’s back cover promises: “An album full of good time party blues.”

(Available from Award Records, 21095 Raquel Road, Laguna Beach, CA 92651; Fax: (949) 497-4192; Web site: https://www.awardrecords.com)

* The Mike Reilly Band plays Friday at the Hard Rock Cafe, 451 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach. 9:30 p.m. $5. (949) 640-8844.