Guitarist Driven by Kindred Spirit : * Along the way, Mike Reilly has been inspired to keep on keeping on by friend Gregg Allman, who’s seen tough times, too.

SILVERADO CANYON —  Mike Reilly started his friendship with Gregg Allman by getting caught red-handed.

It happened about 10 years ago in Berkeley. Reilly, an Orange County blues-rock guitarist, was playing in Elvin Bishop’s band on the first night of a West Coast tour headlined by Allman. While Reilly played, Allman watched and listened, and evidently heard something familiar.

“He came up to me and said, ‘You’re stealing a lot of my licks, boy,’ ” Reilly recalled recently as he sat in the living room of his home--a cozy, wood-shingled cottage with a stone chimney, set deep in this rural community about 10 miles due east of Tustin.

Reilly, a big fan of the Allman Brothers Band, couldn’t argue with his accuser, who had pointed out the stylistic similarities in a tone more good-natured than outraged. “I said, ‘I borrowed them.’ ”

Allman and Reilly became friends on the tour, and the musical give-and-take has continued over the years. Allman lent his voice and Hammond organ sound to a never-released album the Mike Reilly Band recorded in 1985. Reilly and his band of seasoned Los Angeles-area musicians backed Allman on a couple of brief Southern California club swings during 1991. Now they are doing it again, including a show Friday night at the Coach House (other dates are tonight at the Strand in Redondo Beach, and Saturday at the Ventura Theatre).

Allman, who lives in the Bay Area, has been busy launching his film acting career with a supporting role as a drug dealer in the just-released “Rush.” He also continues to tour with the rejuvenated Allman Brothers Band, which played a magnificent show in September at the Pacific Amphitheatre. The Allman Brothers finished 1991 with a series of concerts in their old home base of Macon, Ga., recording the shows for a live album. They’ll be leaving Monday for a two-week tour of Japan.

Even with that hectic schedule, Reilly figured that Allman would be up for a little moonlighting to occupy a few days of downtime.

“The only thing Gregg is really addicted to is playing,” Reilly said. “He’s constantly got to be playing. He had a little time off, so I called him and said, ‘Let’s go do some dates.’ ”

At 34, Reilly is a husky man (but slimmed down considerably from the 250 pounds he was carrying a few years ago) with shoulder-length dark-blond hair and an easygoing manner. Though born and raised in Fullerton and Anaheim, he has a bit of the drawling accent of a Southern blues-rocker. One wall of Reilly’s living room is a photo gallery that includes dozens of shots taken with musicians he has performed with over the years. Among them, in addition to Allman and Bishop, are Joe Walsh, B.B. King and Wayne Bennett, as well as the Band’s Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Levon Helm.

Like Allman, who rose to fame playing with his older brother, Duane, Reilly found his most important musical influences right at home.

His first teachers were his father and an older brother. Reilly said his father, Bob, played guitar in jazz bands before moving from Chicago to Southern California in 1948. For a time, the elder Reilly helped peddle early-model Fender guitars by giving demonstrations at county fairs. He later became a Fullerton police officer, and music became a weekend sideline gig. Reilly says he grew up trying to copy the guitar playing on Deep Purple records, but his father, who died in 1975, made sure that he learned to play jazz scales as well.

Reilly’s brother, Bob Jr., gave him his introduction to the blues.

“When I was 14, my brother brought me Freddie King’s ‘Getting Ready’ album. The next week, he brought me B.B. King’s ‘Live at the Regal.’ Then I got ‘Live at the Fillmore’ (by the Allman Brothers Band) and I knew what I wanted to play.”

At 16, Reilly said, he quit school and started making a living playing in club bands, covering everything from disco hits to the Eagles and Little Feat. He and his brother also formed a band called Club Mambo that played original material. (Reilly said that a third brother, Tim, lives in Fullerton and plays in a Celtic band called Reel to Reel.)

Reilly became more intense about music after his brother, Bob, died in 1980.

“Right after he passed on, I said, ‘Damn it, I’m going to do something.’ I just spent hours with my guitar, and then doors started opening.”

Through auditions, Reilly landed a spot in a band called Sharpshooter, which included drummer Jaimoe, an original member of the Allman Brothers Band, and the late Lamar Williams, who had joined the Allmans after the death of their original bassist, Berry Oakley.

“It was a short-lived band. We played a few shows, and then Lamar got cancer and it disbanded,” Reilly said.

Reilly got his next break in 1981, when he sat in with blues veteran Elvin Bishop at the Palomino in North Hollywood. Bishop invited him to play again at his next show, at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach.

“The next thing I knew, I was in New York with him,” Reilly said. He stayed three years with Bishop, who nicknamed him “The Pup” and gave him his introduction to the touring life and the basic blues.

“People used to say I was playing more of the British blues. (Bishop) helped me get back to the Chicago roots of things. It was an amazing education, the people I met with him--John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King.”

Reilly’s friendship with Gregg Allman dates from December, 1981, when Allman and his post-Brothers solo band traveled in a package tour with Elvin Bishop and a then-unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“We had a lot of things in common, a lot of mutual people in common, and a lot of the same musical tastes,” Reilly said. He thinks the fact that both he and Allman had lost a brother who was their band mate also formed part of the foundation of their friendship. “That was a common bond, an understanding of how much of a feeling of loss that is,” Reilly said. “We kind of looked at each other and (thought), ‘We’re in the same shoes.’ ”

Later, Reilly said, Allman encouraged him to start his own band. In 1985, the Mike Reilly Band made an album with backing from investors, intending to sell the finished product to a major label. Reilly took the deluxe approach, working in expensive studios to get a polished sound. But there were no takers for the high-priced project, he said. According to Reilly, investors who had backed the recording insisted on being paid back immediately by any label that signed the band, and no company was willing to advance that much money for the album.

It was a hard time for Reilly, who fell into heavy drinking. His brother’s death had been alcohol-related, Reilly said, and “it just took almost dying for me to come around.

“It took my wife kicking me out of the house, and all my friends refusing to talk to me,” before Reilly realized he had to stop drinking. Allman, who has had his own bouts with substance abuse, also tried to get his attention. “Gregg was telling me, ‘I’ve paid all those dues. Why are you?’ ”

After sobering up in late 1986, Reilly carried on with his band. By 1989, though, a round of local gigs and occasional touring had failed to turn up a recording deal, and the band broke up.

“We found ourselves burning out,” Reilly said. “Everybody was getting bitter feelings--not toward each other, but just toward the business. We weren’t progressing, and we didn’t want to become a bar band.”

With his music career scaled back to appearances as a side man, Reilly joined his wife, Jani, in managing a cafe near their home. “People would come in and say, ‘If you played with all these people, what are you doing here, cooking?’ ” Reilly said. “But one still has to eat--and I cook (some) mean ribs.”

Reilly credits Allman with prodding him back into full-time music-making.

“He kind of shamed me. He said, ‘You got together the best band you’ve had, and you called it quits?’ He said, ‘The next time I talk to you, I hope you’re back together.’ ”

Last May, Reilly and the same lineup that had folded 18 months before regrouped. It’s an experienced crew. Bassist Gerald Johnson is a veteran of many recording sessions backing Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, Dave Mason and Stephen Stills, among others. The drummer is Mark Williams, son of film composer John Williams. Keyboards player Sean Finnegan is the younger brother of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s keyboards player Mike Finnegan. Danny Ott, who doubles with Reilly in a twin-lead guitar format, also is a member of the excellent local country band Chris Gaffney & the Cold Hard Facts.

Reilly said his band has been playing each weekend, mostly in San Diego. Last fall, the Mike Reilly Band toured as Leon Russell’s opening act for a series of dates. After its show with Allman at the Coach House, the band’s next Orange County performance will be Jan. 25 at the Heritage Brewing Co. in Dana Point.

Reilly has been writing material for another round of demo recordings that he’ll shop to labels. If no deal materializes, he said, the band will put out an album on its own later this year.

He also expects to keep playing from time to time with Allman, when his friend finds some time between making movies and playing with the Allman Brothers Band.

“He could have put various other people together to do (solo shows),” Reilly said. “I’m very honored he’s called on us to do this. The friendship will continue, and the playing will continue.”

* Gregg Allman and the Mike Reilly Band play Friday at 9 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $25. Information: (714) 496-8930.