SOUNDS AROUND TOWN STEVE MORSE : Good Licks : His new album is instrumental rock in overdrive but with conspicuous intelligence in the driver’s seat.

Rumors of its decline have been exaggerated. The electric guitar remains the Great American Symbol of musical youth. Suddenly, instrumentalists like Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are making inroads to mass audiences, no longer just to that cultist, roving subspecies of guitar fanatics.

It’s a fine time for the South to rise again in the form of guitarist Steve Morse, who will be performing at the Ventura Theatre on Saturday.

We first heard from the dangerously dexterous and naturally eclectic Morse about 15 years back, when the Dixie Dregs began spreading their complex but fun fusion of classical music, bluegrass, high-octane rock ‘n’ roll and splashes of jazz. Throw Bill Monroe, the Allman Brothers and the Mahavishnu Orchestra into a stylistic blender. You get the idea.

Morse, a down-to-earth guy, said recently: “We were doing really straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll and classical and country stuff, and were told we were jazz fusion. Labels confuse me.”

Morse, the band’s chief composer and personality, cut some solo albums that found modest crowds. What else can a guitar whiz-kid do? He went on to a lucrative stint in the band Kansas. Then in 1987 he turned to another passion by working as a commercial airline pilot for six months.

These days, Morse has guitar, will travel. In a now-famous summit meeting, Morse flaunted some dazzling licks alongside fellow guitarists Eddie Van Halen and Albert Lee at January’s National Assn. of Music Merchants convention in Anaheim. His new album, “Southern Steel,” is instrumental rock in overdrive but with conspicuous intelligence in the driver’s seat.

Morse talked on the speaker-phone from his home in Northern California while his four-month old son, Evan, cooed and spitted up.

Is “Southern Steel” a meaningful title? Is there something specifically Southern about this album and your playing in general?

The only thing I could point a finger at would be the introduction to the song “Southern Steel” that comes up a few times during the song. That’s a banjo-type part that I play on guitar. Most of my friends tell me that the general feel of my playing has a bit of a country edge--funky string-bending and syncopation they identify as being country-style. I don’t know.

You know how when people don’t think they have an accent but when other people hear you, you do? My playing just has a Southern accent.

Where in the South are you actually from?

Most of my life I lived in Georgia, in Augusta and in a real agricultural area near Atlanta. I chose to move on a farm as soon as the Dregs made enough money to where I could get one. From a very young age in my career, I’ve had an airplane. So my big dream was to have a place to land it.

Have you always been a guitarophile?

Yes and no. I’ve always liked to hear good guitarists, but I also like to listen to music that doesn’t come from guitar. The composition is more important to me, most of the time, than what plays it.

There is some of your classically-tinged music, like “Point Counterpoint,” on this new album. But overall you seem to be going in more of a rock direction.

I’ve toured with this same band for three years. Before then, they’d never been on an album. The last album, “High Tension Wires,” was a solo album with some acoustic guitar music on it. I wanted this album to reflect what the band sounded like. So I involved them in the song selection or in the songwriting, in the sense that I would say, “Here’s an idea I have. You guys want to work on this?” They might say, “I don’t know. That’s kinda wimpy,” or “Too jazzy.” I wanted to get their personalities to steer the band a little bit.

It was the result of what all three of us voted. I basically wrote the music, but I asked for their input on direction and arranging and things like that.

Did you enjoy the experience of being in a big rock group?

Yeah. I did finally say, “I’ve had enough,” and went back to my own thing, but it was a great experience to go through because you really get to see how things are in that world. It’s the old grass-is-greener idea--this was like jumping over the fence and looking at the grass and saying, “Well, it looks greener from a distance, but I don’t know if it is.”

I would have done it again. I think it’s real important to go through those experiences in life, to see it from the other side. I love doing things like that. That’s why I liked being an airline pilot, having a straight job and a uniform, seeing what it’s like for other people.

Is there any rhyme or reason as to why the audience for instrumental rock comes and goes?

The more I try to analyze the music business, the more I see question marks. All I can say is that Eric Johnson, Satriani and Vai are three very good guitar players. Eric, in particular, embodies a style of songwriting that seems very palatable to lots of people. Satriani and Vai are so clever and accomplished that they are spectacular guitar players. And I would include Eric in that, too.

So it’s not like these were three average Joes who made it big because they were instrumental. That’s part of it, too. You could sit there and look at these guys with a microscope and I don’t think you’re going to find many cracks in the armor.

Your own armor’s pretty sturdy.

You know, Andy Warhol said that everybody gets their turn. I cashed in my 15 minutes of fame for a few seconds each year. I’m going for the long haul.

GOINGS ON:

Just when you thought it was safe to bask in the sounds of mindless leisure, New Music comes to Ventura. Put together by Jeff Kaiser, the three-concert series at the Performance Studio this summer kicks off Saturday at 7 p.m. when Venturan Robert Borneman makes sounds in the line of music along with his group, the Ordinary Arts Ensemble.

On the program is the new “Rituals” and old favorites: “Dinner Music,” “Knock on Wood,” “Kyo-ju” and an audience participation number titled “Aileen’s Nightmare.” Expect not the usual.

If you missed veteran jazz wind player Buddy Collette at the Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara a few months back--or if you caught the show and your appetite was whetted for more--Collette will appear in the intimate confines of Wheeler Hot Springs on Sunday at 4 p.m. Collette will be supported by a group including the potent pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist Nedra Wheeler and drummer Albert (Tootie) Heath.

* WHERE AND WHEN

Steve Morse at the Ventura Theatre, Saturday at 9 p.m.

Robert Borneman and the Ordinary Arts Ensemble will perform “Rituals” and other Borneman works at the Performance Studio, 34 N. Palm St. in Ventura, Saturday at 7 p.m.

Buddy Collette at Wheeler Hot Springs, Sunday at 4 p.m. Info: 646-8131.