He's an unlikely looking hero: thin blond hair to the shoulders and beyond; a suspicious mustache that canopies a Beat goatee; light blue jeans and a blue Nike shirt that clings tenuously to a narrow frame; blue eyes that never quite seem to focus.

But hero he is, as an SRO show at the Bottom Line in New York City makes clear. Guitar players from New York to L.A., from his native Ohio to his adopted Georgia, have chosen Morse as their six-string deity by vote and acclaim. They come to his shows to watch and analyze his fingers, his phrasing, his ultimate gall in being an instrumental guitar rocker in an age of techno-pop synths and oblique vocals.

Morse, late of the Dregs (né the Dixie Dregs), is out preaching to the converted with a power trio and an instrumental album entitled The Introduction, which, though it bucks the trends, was threatening the Top 100 just weeks after its release. The record is less an introduction to the man than it is a reaffirmation of what the man does so well. It's a musical journey through Morse's roots and influences. "Cruise Missile," the lead cut has soaring 64ths and parallel guitar and bass lines that evoke Duane Allman and Berry Oakley. "General Lee," written by Morse for another quasi legend, Albert Lee, has open-key chordings and pickings à la Chet Atkins and Buddy Emmons together. "The Whistle," a classical-influenced piece, reflects his formal education as a musician at the University of Miami along with classmates Pat Metheny and Hiram Bullock. The album weaves together this universality of tastes, never letting any one song rest with a single influence. At the center of this eclectic cosmos is a quiet, soft-spoken person, the man without a haircut, Steve Morse.

Morse's eloquence is more elusive when he doesn't have a guitar in his hands. He is not given to listing a litany of his accomplishments. You have to speak to Jerry Peek to discover that Morse has a love affair with fast machines, that he has won prizes for his ability with a dirt bike, that he is a consumate water skier, that he is a rated aircraft pilot.

He balks at calling his music fusion ("It has a slightly negative connotation"), opting instead for "instrumental progressive rock" when pressed for a handle. "I mean 'progressive' to conjure up images of rock other than pop or heavy metal," says Morse, who presides over a precarious balance of his principles and the fact that, historically, instrumental music has not dominated the charts.

In his view it's not an insurmountable problem. "We're getting airplay somehow," he asserts. And the guitarist admits, "I wouldn't mind having a video. We are a beginning band, just starting out. If we could get any airplay at all on MTV with a video that was all-instrumental, it would be a good thing. I think it would be worth sacrificing something for."

Still, when the talk turns back to the programming of videos, Morse's maverick side reasserts itself: "How some of these new bands immediately get a shot, especially if they're from overseas," he mutters; "that doesn't translate as open-mindedness to me. That translates as conservative trendiness."

Morse speaks with a slight, elusive accent, perhaps a result of his geographically varied youth. Born 30 years ago in Ohio, he grew up in Michigan and began his love affair with the guitar at age 10.

"My first real guitar," he recalls, "was a Fender Musicmaster single-pickup, but the pickup was right near the neck, and i just couldn't understand why I couldn't get a nice trebly tone. I didn't know the difference between humbucking and single-coil pickups. After about a year I got a Stratocaster, which is the same neck that I still play from that guitar. That's when I really had a guitar."

Morse attended the University of Miami, where he majored in jazz and classical guitar, and formed the Dixie Grits, who indirectly became the Dixie Dregs. "After the Dixie Grits broke up, the only ones left were Andy [West, bassist] and me," Morse explains, "so we were the dregs."

The Dregs went on to record six albums, the three of which that were produced by Morse all earning Grammy nominations for Best instrumental Performance. But in 1982, the group broke up.

The following spring Morse approached Dregs drummer Rod Morgenstein about a new project: the Steve Morse Band. With the addition of Jerry Peek, Morse felt he had all the components of the next step together.

"I rely heavily on these guys; they're essential," he states emphatically. Regarding 31-year-old New Yorker Morgenstein, Morse says, "He was always an important personality, always playing devil's advocate, helping make people more open-minded about things." Peek, a 30-year-old from Raleigh, North Carolina, is summed up succinctly by Morse as "a real amazing bass player."

The basic drum tracks were recorded at Eddy Offord's Atlanta studio, and the guitar and bass parts were recorded at Morrisound Studio in Tampa. Most of the record's preproduction took place in Morse's head. He generally goes in knowing what he wants and, self-admittedly, takes charge, even to the point of writing out parts for the other players. But input from the band is important to him. "I just want to see a look in their eyes that says they like it. If I don't get that, then we'll go on to something else."

All keyboard/synth parts but one were played by Morse, who also did his own production. What might be construed as vanity or a narrowness of vision is actually an essential ingredient in Morse's approach. Even the minimal size of the band suggests a streamlined, get-to-the-point direction. Melodies and motifs are stated and recapitulated with a classical grace and a baroque economy; as he puts it, "more than one thing happening at a time. Build it up and bring it down and bring it up again. You try to have it travel a little distance."

Morse channels the energy into playing rather than dissipating it in jamming. Yet there is no sense of confinement from within the music or the musicians. Jerry Peek: "He visualizes the stuff very clearly. Most of what I'm playing are his parts. He's so aware of tempo and tuning, so I'm more into that now. If he's not at the genius level, he's very close. I've seen him in rehearsal make up a fourth or fifth part that would work with all the other parts. Something that would take someone in a music theory class hours and hours, he can do in his head."

For all his technical wizardry, Morse handles his axe in a swashbuckling manner, low-slung and straight out. About this, he says, "I found I can get my best vibrato by holding the guitar like a club. Imagine the neck of the guitar sticking out like you would hold a flashlight. I grab it with my thumb over the top. If you try to face your palm to the audience with your fingers out and lift that up to your neck, it feels unnatural. My right hand wasn't as developed at the time I first did that stuff. I was doing all hammer-ons and pull-offs. I didn't think I would have a problem picking 'cause I was hardly ever picking. So I adopted a very unusual, cramped right-hand style."

Awkward as it may appear, Morse claims it permits him to more easily mute strings and to operate the volume and tone controls while playing. But, he adds, "I have to practice more than other people just to stay in shape. If I'm playing one show, I'll pick for at least an hour. For two shows, well, your fingers get pretty sore. I pull tendons real easy, and I break through my calluses, so I take it easier in those cases.

"I practice scales for one to one and a half hours a day with a metronome. Lots of times I'll use a guitar with heavier strings than usual to simulate the stress of an actual performance. I always practice cross-picking-playing two notes on a string, starting on the downstroke and then starting on the upstroke. I always practice triplets-three notes on a string-and always scales and modes."

If you're getting the idea that Steve Morse is a self-sufficient musician, you're right, and it accounts for his belief that there's no democracy in a recording studio. "When you're mixing an album with a five-piece band," he declares, "every member is gonna think that his instrument isn't loud enough. So how can they all be right? Somebody has to be in charge. As each person came into this band, I said, 'This is the band; I started it to play my music. Do you still want to be in it?'"

That said, Morse leans back and adds, "I go way out of my way to make things right for the musicians. If somebody's unhappy, that really affects me. They don't have to go on strike; they just have to tell me."

Steve Morse Band Aids

Steve Morse uses a hybrid Fender with a 17-year-old Strat neck ("it's almost gone; it's been refretted seven times") and a Telecaster body at least as old. The pickups are a Telly rhythm pickup with a special cover to reduce feedback, a Strat pickup, a Gibson humbucker, a hex pickup fitted for a primitive guitar synth he once used, and a DiMarzio Steve Morse model.

According to DiMarzio's Steve Blucher, the company contacted Morse about two years ago to see if he was interested in helping to develop a pickup that would meet his specifications. At the time, Blucher explains, Morse wanted enhanced midrange and more output than he was getting from his Fender humbucker. After experimenting with various wire gauges and magnets, they achieved a high-output, medium-impedance pickup that delivered Morse's desired characteristics. The pickup is available from DiMarzio (1388 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10310) for $100 (retail).

Aside from infrared homing radar, the only other thing notably absent from Morse's heavily armed hybrid axe is a tremolo arm. He explains this omission by saying, "It would be in the way. I put the heel of my hand over the bridge [a Tune-O-Matic] and alternately cover and uncover the strings that I'm not playing." With his hand in that position, a tremolo arm would cut into his speed, he feels.

Morse's experience with tremolo bars dates back to his early infatuation with Jimi Hendrix, but he left it behind as his style came to involve more picking. He also feels that tremolo effects have become somewhat clichéd in contemporary guitar playing, and his interest has recently been piqued by the possibility of a device along the lines of Clarence White's hip-activated string-puller.

His rarely used backup guitar is a copy of his main axe, assembled by DiMarzio. He also uses an Ovation Legend cutaway steel-string acoustic and an Ovation Classic nylon-string cutaway that's wired in stereo. Morse's amps, which house JBL K-120 and Celestion Sidewinder speakers, are all Ampegs: a V4 and a V7 with relay switching between them (the V4 used with "neutral" tone settings), and a V9 ("an SVT EQ'd for guitar") for effects: Lexicon Prime Time 93, PCM41 and PCM42 ("for short delays"), wah-wah pedal, Roland Boss chorus and Ernie Ball volume pedals ("They're easy to fix"). He uses Ernie Ball picks, Ernie Ball strings (.010, .013, .016, .026, .032 and .042), and the two high strings are Ernie Ball reinforced RPS strings. Morse uses "round, high" large frets.

Jerry Peek plays a Guild SB-602 bass with tremolo bar and EMG active pickups through two Ampeg SVTs.

Rod Morgenstein pounds away at a Premier Resonator kit with double kicks. He uses Paiste cymbals and countless calories.