Bill Gordon provides the soundtrack to your dinner at El Tapatio

Bill Gordon had never before been so nervous. The stage was packed with actors, but the spotlight was on him as he played the judge in “Hello, Dolly!” He got through it, booming his lines (and his gavel) in last fall’s Liberty Center musical, but now he’s happy to be back in his comfort zone.

Yes, the Sedalia guitarist plays music for hundreds of diners three times a week at El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant. But, if everything goes as planned, most of those people won’t notice him. Or more precisely, they won’t be bothered by his music as they dine and talk.

“I don’t like to intrude on people here,” said Gordon, 69, who will play Valentine’s Day music from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. “They come to relax, they’ve had a hectic week, they’re with their family or wife or girlfriend. They don’t want mariachi screaming in their ears. They don’t want loud rock music.”

El Tapatio owner H.A. Perez booked the non-singing instrumentalist for the month of November, then extended his engagement for December and January. Perez recently signed Gordon through all of 2012. In addition to special holiday shows, Gordon plays over the dinner hour on Fridays and Saturdays and over the lunch hour on Sundays.

Perez told Gordon: “The mariachi groups I’ve had are too loud and people can’t have table conversations. Other acts don’t play the right kind of music. Because you have provided music that people have loved for the last three months, you’re going to play here three nights a week for the entire year.”

Some musicians would chafe under the monotony of being a house musician. But not Gordon, for whom the gig is different every day.

“The more frequently I play, the better I get at my performance, so I look at it as being really exciting each time,” Gordon said between sets at his Jan. 27 performance. “I never know who’s going to walk in the door. I add new songs every day, and I get to play more regularly to a more appropriate audience. It’s probably the best scenario I could think of, except Carnegie Hall.”

While Gordon, who has been playing guitar since he was a teenager in Indianapolis, takes pride in being in the background, he’s not exactly shy, either. He says hello when friends walk in, and he takes mental notes on how patrons react to his selections.

“I really found out what people like through trial and error,” said Gordon, who never writes out a set list. “I came here thinking I gotta bring all my Latin music. About every fifth song was Latin at first. But they love to hear the old standards, ballads, and country classics from Willie Nelson and Leroy Van Dyke — the old names. That’s my style because I grew up in that era. Look around you, and you see the regulars are between 40 and 65. And they’re the ones that really compliment me, because they haven’t heard these songs in 20 years.”

That’s not to say Gordon — a retired health services worker who is married to Elayne, a laboratory scientist — zeroes in on a particular type of listener. At the Jan. 27 show, he was called over to a booth of teenagers or 20-somethings who told him they enjoyed his music.

“I can tell right now in this room what their hot button is,” said Gordon, who is always aware of his audience even though he seems deep in concentration while playing. “You make eye contact or get a nod. Sometimes you’ll get light applause. So yes, every person’s different.

“I see a medical physician over there. I think he’s going to like some classical, maybe Johnny Mathis or Frank Sinatra. And I’ll test them, too. I’ll watch their reaction as I go from Sinatra to Dean Martin to classical and see what happens.”

Gordon is sort of like a DJ in that sense (and yes, he does take requests). In fact, if you thought El Tapatio’s music was piped in rather than performed by a human being, he’ll take that as the highest praise. He programs his amplifier for “chorus” and “reverb,” giving his songs a nice touch of echo that sounds just right in a chatty restaurant.

“And the guitar itself creates its own mellow sound because it’s a thick, hollow guitar, not a solid plank of wood that has an electric sound,” said Gordon, who is happy that he doesn’t have to lug his 80-pound amp to different venues. “This is more of an acoustic sound amplified.”

It’s appropriate that Gordon is now El Tapatio’s house musician, because the restaurant is like a second home to him — a place where he has a steady gig yet can avoid the spotlight.

“It’s my kind of place, my kind of people, my kind of music, my kind of sound,” he said.