Bobby Lee Rodgers could make a mint, playing "Free Bird" and "Margaritaville" every weekend. He's one of the best guitar players, vocalists and musical arrangers in all of Georgia.

But that sort of thing doesn't interest him. At 40, he's got this "be true to yourself" thing going on, so he only records and performs his own songs, which don't exactly attract stadium-sized crowds.

"It's tough emotionally, and it's hard on your family," Rodgers explains. "Kurt Cobain said 'I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.' That hit me like a ton of bricks. That's me. That's how I live my life."

Rodgers is proficient on guitar, bass, banjo and a half-dozen other instruments. He was one of the youngest instructors ever to join the teaching staff at Boston's Berklee University, and now that he lives in Savannah, he gives the occasional lesson around town. He is in demand as a session musician in Atlanta, too.

Rodgers has made a couple of solo CDs, as well as one ("Deluxe Edition") fronting a trio called the Codetalkers.

He'll play with the band in a special New Year's Eve show Wednesday at Live Wire Music Hall.

"I've tried to do the 'regular' thing," he says. "But it's like there's one road, and that's my road. Whenever I get off of it, I just pay, karmically.

"I have a clear vision and I have to follow it, whether people like it or not. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person out here."

All this would just be a bunch of hot air if Rodgers' music wasn't so good - it's an eclectic grab-bag of pop, jazz, rhythm 'n' blues and folkie-type Americana, with witty lyrics and solidly-built melodies.

No wonder he can count the members of the melting-pot jam band Widespread Panic among his biggest fans and supporters.

In today's economy, not many people are rushing out to take a chance on music they've never heard before.

If anybody's going to change that, it'll be Bobby Lee Rodgers.

"I would just like to keep doing what I'm doing, and maybe have some more people come so I could make a bit better living," he shrugs. "And be at home as much as I can with my baby and my wife.

"But if I died tomorrow, musically, I would be totally content. I would have no regrets."