Clark Is No Ordinary Guy : Pop: The veteran songwriter, whose work brings a literary edge to folk-country music, performs in Santa Ana on Friday..

Guy Clark isn’t a name familiar to most pop fans, but Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Lyle Lovett and U2 think it should be. They’re just a few of the respected artists who have either recorded Clark’s songs or sung his praises over the past two decades.

Yet the most convincing introduction to the 51-year-old Texas songwriter is his own work, which brings an enticing literary edge to the poignancy and wit of folk-country music.

As much as any album since John Prine’s “The Missing Years” in 1991, Clark’s latest collection, the character-rich “Boats to Build,” seems wholly an expression of artistic instincts rather than commercial considerations.

Prine’s album ended up winning a Grammy last year for best folk recording--and “Boats to Build” is inviting enough to do the same next year.

But Clark--who’ll make a rare Southern California appearance on Wednesday at the Troubadour--doesn’t have record industry prizes or all the talk about being a “songwriter’s songwriter” on his mind as he sits in a booth at the El Coyote restaurant near the Fairfax area.

“I’m pleased if I’ve influenced or inspired other writers,” says Clark, whose quiet good looks would be ideal for the role of the town marshal in a Western movie. “But I wouldn’t ever encourage anyone to write like me. The important thing is finding your own path and following it.

“My favorite writer is Townes Van Zandt, but I wouldn’t dare try to write like him. I just try to use him as a yardstick when I’m working on a song.”

It was Van Zandt, a fellow Texan best known for writing the mystical “Pancho and Lefty,” who convinced late-bloomer Clark to devote full time to music.

Raised in the small Gulf Coast town of Rockport, Tex., Clark loved music as a youngster--especially the blues and the Mexican folk music that he heard around Texas. But he resisted music as a career because his lawyer father wanted him to be a lawyer or doctor.

“My parents were children of the Depression, and those were scary, scary times,” he recalls. “So it was instilled in us as children to be careful . . . to get a solid, secure job.”

Instead of television at night, Clark and his two younger sisters sat around the kitchen table with their parents reading the poetry of Robert Frost or Stephen Vincent Benet. Through high school and two years of college, Clark played guitar for relaxation and pleasure, but he didn’t think of applying his love of images and words to writing songs until he met Van Zandt on the folk club scene in Houston.

“Townes wrote in a real literate way,” Clark continues in a soft Texas drawl as he fingers a bottle of light beer. “It was the first time I had seen anyone good who wasn’t in that sort of Tin Pan Alley, moon-June-spoon songwriting style. Suddenly, writing became real to me.”

But it was years later before Clark, whose various jobs included art director at a Houston TV station, made a commitment to music. Hoping to get a recording or publishing contract, he moved to Los Angeles in the early ‘70s, auditioning his songs when he wasn’t helping make dobro guitars for a Long Beach company.

Clark, who was in his 30s by then, found Los Angeles too big and too impersonal. He relocated to Nashville, taking with him the idea for “L.A. Freeway,” a glad-to-be-leaving song that became a modest pop hit for Jerry Jeff Walker in 1973.

There was a spirit of independence and adventure in the air in Nashville in those days that attracted songwriters such as Clark, Mickey Newbury and, later, John Prine--much the same way Paris once lured restless poets and novelists.

Clark’s own debut album, “Old No. 1,” was released in 1975 by RCA, and it set the pattern for his recording career: modest sales but considerable acclaim for the economy and insight of his lyrics.

“She Ain’t Going Nowhere,” one of the songs from that album, demonstrated Clark’s ability to convey emotions with a twist. It’s a song about a woman’s refusal to stay in a suffocating relationship or environment that includes the lines: She ain’t going nowhere / She’s just leavin’ .

Clark, who is married to singer-painter Susanna Clark, has released six albums since then, including “Boats to Build,” his first in three years.

The collection, which includes guest appearances by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, ranges from the gently optimistic title tune to the warmly philosophical “Ramblin’ Jack and Mahan.” Sample lines from the latter: I got these lines in my face/Trying to straighten out the wrinkles in my life.

Clark has had the wrinkles in his life, including financial problems that made even him--the songwriter so admired for his artistic integrity--sometimes sit down and try to write a commercial hit.

“People have come to me when I was flat broke and said, ‘Man, so-and-so is cutting a record next week. Here’s a perfect chance for you to write a hit song for him,’ ” he says. “And I’ve tried and I can’t do it. The stuff turned out to be awful.

“The truth is I’ve never had a piece of contrived work make me a dime. So, it’s not even something I eventually had to wrestle with. I just trusted my own instincts and wrote the music I wanted to write.”

Clark--who’ll also join Michelle Shocked, Joe Ely and Allen Toussaint in a songwriter’s seminar on Friday at the Rhythm Cafe in Santa Ana and on Jan. 31 at the Troubadour--pauses and lights a cigarette.

“There’s another reason you don’t want to stray from your heart as a writer,” he says finally, smiling. “If you write anything bad, it might just become a hit . . . and you’d have to spend the rest of your life singing it every night.”

Guy Clark, Michelle Schocked, Joe Ely and Allen Toussaint will appear at 8 p.m. Friday for the “In Their Own Words” program at the Rhythm Cafe, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. $19.50 to $21. (714) 556-2233.