MUSIC : Blues Legend Back on the Road Again : Guitarist Albert King is pulled out of a short-lived retirement amid fans’ continuing clamor for his music.

Albert King didn’t exactly leave the blues behind when he packed away his electric guitar a few years back, along with a career that generated “Born Under a Bad Sign” and other blues hits. But he went into semi-retirement after nearly three decades on the road.

“Every now and then, I was going to go out and play,” King says now. “But I was mostly going to be down at the fishing bank.”

That plan didn’t survive very long, as demonstrated again by King’s performance tonight at the Country Club in Reseda, where he’ll be making a rare local appearance.

The blues veteran meant to stay home in either Memphis or Lovejoy, Ill., he says, but the continuing clamor for his music didn’t allow much time for relaxation. “They pulled me out of retirement.”

King, 69, is now fronting a band of four musicians, including a saxophonist, performing the old songs that have defined his career and filled at least 20 albums. Most of the material has been guided by King’s raw vocals and fiery guitar leads, demonstrating his “ability to recast the unlikeliest material into ringing personal statements,” according to the Rolling Stone Record Guide.

It’s a career that began in a three-piece ensemble of young players in Arkansas called the In the Groove Band. “That was always my dream, to play a guitar and play the blues,” King says. “I started out way back, just playing to myself. I rehearsed to myself for five years before I ever got out to play.

“My first guitar cost me a dollar and a quarter. Then I paid $125 for my first electric guitar and amplifier.”

All along, he’d been listening to the records of such seminal blues artists as Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, ultimately working to develop a musical voice through his left-handed guitar playing. But success eluded him until the 1960s and his work with Stax Records, where he recorded such signature songs as “Crosscut Saw.”

“I scuffled for many years,” he says. “I had it pretty tough.”

With his retirement plans now virtually forgotten, King is expecting to return to the recording studio early next year with a new, larger band, this one with a full horn section. “I just miss them,” King explains. “On a lot of my records, there is horns.”

King is negotiating with a record label to release an album of new material, and he hopes that some of his old unreleased Stax recordings will eventually emerge too. “And next year, I’m going to be doing a little more traveling,” he says. “I just slowed down a little bit.”

Where and When Who: Albert King with Roomful of Blues, and Shirley Dixon with the Taildraggers. Location: Country Club, 18415 Sherman Way, Reseda. Hours: 8 tonight. Price: $20 general, $30 for VIP seating. Call: (818) 881-5603.