John Egan

McGonigel's Mucky Duck presents John Egan.

When John Egan shouts the blues, he’s hard to miss. Still, it can be difficult to find physical evidence the musician exists: He performs only about once a month, his three CDs are tough to find, and his most recent recording was for a buzzy movie that never had a real theatrical run.

The soft-spoken Egan seems fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the music business. He’s at his most comfortable going about his days quietly while cutting loose on stage, pounding his foot on a percussive stompbox and being just as combative with his steel resonator guitar.

“He’s got a way, especially when he plugs in that resonator, of really coming almost completely unhinged,” saysDavid Rice, an Austin musician who has worked with Egan for more than 15 years. Most recently they collaborated on the score for the documentary film Crawford, about the Texas town that became home to President George W. Bush.

Egan has made three records that don’t lend themselves to easy categorization. He fits somewhere on an power blues arc that includes Jimi Hendrix and Chris Whitley, artists who put a powder keg under the venerable genre. He cops to taking in a lot of Prince as a young listener, which explains the funkier moments on his first album, The Gin Diaries. Houston’s rich singer-songwriter history seems to have also found its way into his mix.

As he puts it, “it’s kind of a hybridized thing. It was originally songwriter based, but it evolved into something louder.”

He’s also well acquainted with old Southern soul — evident in his singing — from his mother’s music collection. He says an early record by soul-singer-turned-disco-smoothie Johnnie Taylor made an early impression.