Proctor Plays Guitar in the Twilight Realm : Music: Finger-style performer links up with the “new acoustic” movement on the path of maximum resistance.

Chris Proctor is one of those musicians whose name elicits an uncertain response from most people but raised eyebrows and knowing nods from those who seek out the less-trumpeted masters of instrumental music.

The 39-year-old finger-style guitarist, who performs a solo concert tonight at the Del Mar Shores Auditorium, might be the most famous unknown virtuoso in the country.

If Proctor operates in that twilight realm wherein platinum talent begets bronze rewards--at least in terms of recognition and remuneration--it is because he has chosen a path of maximum resistance. In a music world dominated by performers who strive for currency (in both senses of the term) and identification with mainstream tastes, Proctor instead aligns with a sub-genre within a sub-genre: the iconoclasts of the “new acoustic” movement.

In the fraternity of acoustic-guitar protagonists, Proctor occupies a room just down the hall from Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges--and an entire city block away from the “new age” mellow-merchants.

Unlike the latter, he doesn’t deal in rippling, quasi-impressionistic background music that unfurls from the guitar-like patterned fabric from a bolt. More like Kottke, he composes genuine guitar “tunes”--distinct from one another in their melodic symmetry, stylistically unique in their achieving a lovely suspension between tonal haiku and technical prose.

But Proctor diverges even from his friendly competitors in his application of semi-classical structure and development. His “rustic Baroque” approach is the result of theoretical instruction Proctor sought long after he had become accomplished on the guitar, and it stands in direct, almost humorous contrast to the music that inspired him to play guitar in the first place.

“I attended the University of Utah, which is not exactly a hotbed of alternative culture,” Proctor said Wednesday from his home in Pasadena. “One day in 1970, I stumbled into a little basement coffeehouse, and this guy was playing Arlo Guthrie’s song, ‘Alice’s Restaurant.’ Then he played some old blues by guys like the Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

“Now, I’d heard all that stuff before,” he continued, “but I’d never seen anyone play it, so I’d always figured that the finger-picking was being done by two players. When I realized that one person could play what sounded like two or three parts, it really got to me.”

Proctor took up the guitar at age 20, a relatively late beginning point for a future maestro. He practiced eight hours a day, and eventually acquired enough skill and confidence to perform in bars. In 1979, Proctor began touring the country, playing small clubs. Three years later, a scant decade after first picking up a guitar, Proctor won the 1982 National Finger-Picking Championship in Winfield, Kan.

Since then, he has released four albums, the latest being “Steel String Stories,” on the independent Flying Fish label. The recordings help spread the word about Proctor, but his label’s modest distribution capacity and lack of promotional punch hold Proctor’s sales figures in the low tens of thousands--hardly the sort of numbers that earn bullets on the charts.

“I’ve had this private goal of selling enough records to earn some leisure time,” he said, laughing, “but that will never happen. You know, I look at the music business, and people are impressed with what I’ve achieved, and in some ways I’m happy to have achieved it. But it’s such small potatoes compared to the money and recognition people earn on the pop side. I’m a well-respected player, and it’s still a real struggle to get by.

“My peer group are people who went out and became attorneys and doctors and young lions of industry. They’re applying themselves assiduously to their chosen professions, and they have the vacation homes, and three cars, and the other trappings of success. Now, I think I’ve applied myself just as much, and I have an 8-year-old car with 195,000 miles on it,” he continued, laughing. “I drove it back from a gig in Utah last night because I have musical equipment that I can’t always fly everywhere.”

Still, Proctor isn’t complaining. Not Really.

“Listen, I love what I do,” he asserted, “but there are only three people in my genre who have achieved a little ease in life--Kottke, Hedges, and maybe Chet Atkins, if you can include him in the category of acoustic music. Everyone else exists about a light-year beneath that economic level . . . you know, working hard, trying to keep an audience, trying to maintain some degree of national awareness of your work--all while trying to advance the cause of acoustic music.”

Proctor partially supplements his income by giving intermediate and advanced guitar lessons to a handful of select students, two of whom are San Diegans who drive to Pasadena for one-on-one instruction. But he devotes most of his energy to his art, which he feels is still evolving.

“My goals have changed over the years,” he said. “Initially, it seemed like an impossible fantasy just to have a career in music, to be able to write interesting tunes and to have them well-received. Now, I want each year and each record to exhibit a step forward, where it’s clear to the listener that there’s something going on there.”

“I’d like my listeners to perceive growth in terms of the quality of my composing and playing,” he added. “There’s a lot of artificial music out there these days, but I’m attracted to a real musician up on stage playing a real instrument and making real music.”

* Chris Proctor performs a solo concert at 8 p.m. today in the Del Mar Shores Auditorium, in the Winston School, 215 9th St., Del Mar. For ticket information, call 436-4030.