Back to the Rick Derringer That Never Was : Pop music: Grown-up fans can welcome his blues rocker incarnation at the Coach House tonight.

The sight of Rick Derringer flying across a stage like a guitar-wielding sprite on amphetamines is one of the indelible images of pre-punk, ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll. In oversized fur boots, garish capes, feathered ‘do, Day-Glo rouge and other such rock star accouterments, Derringer was either frash-cool or vulgar excess personified, depending on one’s point of view.

The fact that he’s typecast as a ‘70s guy isn’t lost on Derringer, who plays tonight at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. During a recent phone interview, the singer/guitarist/songwriter/producer seemed positively obsessed with putting the past behind him: Almost any given topic led back to his desire to be given a fresh start.

“In some venues, they really don’t even want to see me around,” he said. “They think I’m this loud, sweaty, uncouth, distasteful rock ‘n’ roll guitar player. I’m away from that now, and I never really was as much like that as people thought. I’ve grown up a lot since then, but a lot of people who grew up with my music and then grew out of it still think of me as that guy, instead of taking me along with them.

“Like, when I was a kid, I’d be really excited to see--I’m gonna throw a name out here--Foghat, let’s say. Now as an adult, I’m not as excited about that idea anymore. But let’s say there was a new Foghat album out that reflected their age and experience and was more in line with my taste as a grown-up, then I’d be excited again. That’s what I’m talking about. There’s a period of time that people remember me for that we’ve both grown out of. I’d just like the people to know that I’m right there with them.”

Derringer has been on the scene since 1965, when he was the 16-year-old front man for the McCoys, a group that hit No. 1 with “Hang On Sloopy.” Back then, he once said, was “like Christmas every day. What teen-ager could ask for more than to have the top record in the world, girls screaming and pulling your clothes off everywhere you go?”

*

By 1969, their hit-making days were behind them, but the McCoys were hired as the unbilled backup band for then-arena-packing Johnny Winter. When drug problems sidelined Winter the following year, Derringer took up with Johnny’s brother, Edgar.

His association with the Winters ran concurrently with a successful career of his own that lasted throughout the ‘70s, until he began to work more behind the scenes. In recent years, he has produced, toured with or guested on albums by the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Weird Al Yankovich, Barbara Streisand, Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Richie Havens, Kiss and Todd Rundgren, among others. But his work on behalf of others grew to obscure his own career, something he regrets and is trying to rectify.

*

“It got really easy to stay home and make money instead of traveling out on the road. Also, record companies and managers were pushing me in that direction. An artist tries to do the best he can, but the whole music industry is geared toward telling the artist what they think the best he can do is. “Once I decided to pursue my own career again, I took a look and realized I didn’t need these agents who were still taking advantage of me from the old days.

“The managers and everyone else were remnants of a time when I was younger and less sure of myself. I fired managers; I got rid of agents, I just got rid of everybody. My hobby now is taking care of my own business.”

He has recast himself as a macho blues rocker, very much in the vein of his old employer Johnny Winter. The cover of his new album, “Back to the Blues,” shows a tattooed, leather-jacketed Derringer cradling a Stratocaster. Actually, at 46, he still looks more like a teen-age girl than a roadhouse tough guy, but his stinging, hyperkinetic blues workouts ably showcase his considerable skills, and fans of his work with the Winters should welcome him back off the strength of this latest effort.

*

“I started out real young, and when you’re that age, you take it for granted that people are going to be watching out for you,” he said. “You lose perspective of how much control you’ve lost; you don’t know if you’re going in the right direction. I got to the point, I guess, where I was playing a lot of music that I didn’t feel comfortable with.

“But now, having had the opportunity to do a blues album, it’s obvious that this is the music I should have been doing all along. It’s more grown-up music than people are used to me doing. I’m striving for some kind of honesty here.

“My job is just like anybody else’s job. This is what I do, and I’d like to continue doing it.”

* Rick Derringer plays tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, on a bill with A.R.M. and Backroad Shack. Show time: 9 p.m. $10. (714) 496-8930.