A Road Warrior Tries Nashville Sound

Delbert McClinton’s nominated “Live From Austin” didn’t win this year’s Grammy for contemporary blues album, but the veteran vocalist/songwriter isn’t bemoaning the loss. In fact, he was almost as gratified by Bonnie Raitt’s surprise Grammy sweep as he would have been by a win of his own. Like McClinton, Raitt is an artist who has never fit comfortably into music-industry formats, and has sustained her career as a 200-nights-a-year road warrior.

“Her winning helps me because if I don’t run parallel to her, I don’t know who does,” said McClinton, who appears with his seven-piece band at Bogart’s in Long Beach on Thursday and Club Lingerie on Friday and Saturday.

“The time is right for some good, funky music, because a lot of music has really been homogenized. One of the exciting things to me was always the different regional sounds of music. People are realizing that’s getting lost now, so they’re really searching for it.”

McClinton’s rootsy, R&B-based; style has suffered through its own version of category hell over the years. Labels for his music have ranged from progressive country and Southern rock to Texas roadhouse blues and honky-tonk R&B.;

But the new “I’m With You”--his first collection of fresh studio material since 1981--may open up a new one: Nashville soul. McClinton, who moved to Nashville from his native Texas a year ago, brought guitarist Anson Funderburgh to the session to join a team of Nashville session players assembled by co-producer Barry Beckett.

The result is a fiery, up-tempo collection driven by snappy horn lines and soulful vocals. Half the songs are McClinton originals, signaling the end of a seven-year writing dry spell that followed his 1980 hit “Giving It Up for Your Love.” After that hit, McClinton’s follow-up album flopped, and the label, Muscle Shoals Sound, shut down.

“Every record company I had been with since 1971 folded while I was on the label, so I was snakebit,” McClinton, 49, explained. “By the time I got through the last one in 1981, my life was in disarray, my marriage was going bad, the record company folded and I just lost interest.”

McClinton had his first brush with fame when he played harmonica on Bruce Channel’s 1962 hit, “Hey! Baby,” and went along when Channel toured England. There, McClinton taught a few harmonica licks to the rhythm guitarist for the unknown band that was opening the shows--a fella by the name of John Lennon.

While McClinton is enthusiastic about his new album, his ace in the hole remains his live performances.

“If we’re hot, people are going to like it because it’s just good, fun, danceable music,” he said confidently. “When it’s happening, you can’t deny it and nobody has to tell you this is good because you know it is. And we’re good a lot.”