On the Long Road With Michael Franks : Pop music: For the singer-songwriter, the travails of touring are a necessary part of life. ‘It’s just what I have to do when I’ve got a new recording in release.’

The road will be Michael Franks’ home for most of 1993. His Southern California performances this month are stops along a path that reaches from early June to mid-December, from the United States to Europe, Japan and the Far East.

He appears at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano tonight and Wednesday, Aug. 13 at the Ventura Theatre and Aug. 14 at the Greek Theatre.

For the quiet, soft-spoken singer-songwriter, the travails of touring are a necessary part of life in the entertainment business.

“It’s just what I have to do when I’ve got a new recording in release,” Franks said last weekend in a call from a stop in Detroit. “And I try to keep things in perspective. At least I’m not on the road as much as my friend Pat Metheny. When he tours, it’s, like, Homeric.”

Franks’ new album, “Dragonfly Summer,” is his first in three years, and he is thankful “to slow down my release schedule, somewhat. This is my 11th album, and for a while I was doing a new one practically every year.”

Aside from an appearance at that 1992 Playboy Jazz Festival with the Yellowjackets, Franks hasn’t appeared in the Southland, according to his recollection, “in two or three years.” But his audiences this time around can expect to hear a healthy selection of such Franks’ perennials as “Popsicle Toes,” “Down in Old Brazil” and “Monkey See, Monkey Do,” as well as three or four tunes from his current release.

Franks is pleased with both the musical quality and the commercial success (it was cruising atop Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz charts in June and July) of “Dragonfly Summer.”

Franks is backed by the Yellowjackets on four tracks, including “Monk’s New Tune,” a tribute to jazz immortal Thelonious Monk. He also has a duet with Peggy Lee on “You Were Meant for Me.”

The albums’ most unusual track, however, is his ballad reading of the theme from “I Love Lucy.”

“It was not something I ever expected to record,” recalled Franks with a soft chuckle. “But I have two younger sisters who are rabid Lucy fans--you know, who can quote chapter and verse from every episode. Well, when we were kids, we lived in Del Mar, where Lucy and Desi owned a beach house. In the summers, we sometimes used to see them in church, and it was really exciting, even though the thing I remember most was the unreal color of Lucy’s hair, which was unlike any other color on Earth.

“Anyhow, I found a record a while back called ‘Babalu Music,’ and it was Desi Arnaz singing songs that he had done as Ricky Ricardo. So I decided to do a sort of off-the-wall version for my sisters--sort of an extra Christmas present,” he said. “I made it into a ballad, and re-harmonized it a little bit, and when my producer heard it he said it had to be on the album.”

In addition to spending more time at his home on Sanibel Island in Florida, Franks has used the time between recordings to work on a pet project--a theatrical musical based on the life of French painter Paul Gauguin. A performance of the work will take place next January at a playwrights workshop in New York City.

“It seems as though it’s been going on forever,” said Franks. “I actually finished it about three years ago, and it’s taken this long to get a production--which everyone tells me is a perfectly normal span of time for a theater piece. But I’ll be happy to finally see it on stage.”

Despite his expanding list of activities, however, Franks still seems to need the creative sustenance he draws from the coolly understated interaction he has with his fans.

“I like to think people respond to the aspects of my music that are most important to me--to the fact that the songs are romantic, but still not saccharine. And I think--I hope--they appreciate the fact that I try to put some linguistic energy into what I do. I think of each song as an opportunity to say something--more in some than others, I guess, but I always try.

“What really makes these long tours worthwhile,” Franks said, “is when I can sense that connection, that response with the audience taking place. That’s when everything comes together. Because, you know, the truth is that I don’t really feel like I have any chops to do anything other than singing and writing songs.”