O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Simpson Makes Time Stand Still : The British guitarist halts the clock with his breathtaking musical abilities during his appearance in Laguna Niguel.

Martin Simpson is one of those musicians who seems to come from another time. There is something of the troubadour to him, something of the solitary itinerant bluesman, and something that seems inimical to the modern world of mass consumption.

There may be a touch of allegory to an event that the British guitarist related during his performance Saturday evening at Shade Tree Stringed Instruments: When the cover art of his 1989 album “Leaves of Life” was chopped down to fit the cassette format, the title appears to have been abbreviated to “Martin Simpson Leaves Life.”

Though the record industry might not especially note which side of the ground he’s on, Simpson showed no sign of impending demise in his first of two shows at the ideal little guitar shop and concert room.

Like few players of the many who assay the guitar, Simpson plays with a breathtaking musical clarity. At his best, he can make time stand still as he explores the structure of a song. Saturday, he was hitting that special place by his second number, a medley of North Carolina traditional tunes, “Pretty Saro” and “Long Steel Rail.”

The first was a slow, sonorous instrumental in which he let notes hang in the air like voices calling from a far hilltop, made deeply atmospheric by the ringing overtones of his open strings.

Simpson seamlessly slid from that to “Long Steel Rail,” a banjo tune on which his impossibly fast finger-picking conveyed the anticipation of a child waiting by a railroad track, and the power of a big steam engine as it came into view. Even when playing such a kinetic piece, Simpson’s attack remained as focused and detailed as a William Henry Jackson photograph. Using no words, Simpson is quite an effective storyteller.

When he performed here last year, his wife, Jessica, did most of the singing.

Her vocals then seemed overshadowed by the expressiveness of his playing. That might be a fate awaiting all but the best of singers, though; Simpson did his own vocals this time, and they too seemed often to have less of a lyric quality than his strings conveyed.

His singing in places seemed strained and forced, though that worked to his advantage in some instances. One of those was on his own composition, “Dreamtime,” which was inspired by a National Geographic special about an Australian aboriginal elder mourning the vanishing ways of his people. Though Simpson’s lyrics were painted with too broad a stroke to hit a nerve, his pained, unglamorous singing helped to provide the wanting emotion.

His vocals and guitar also played well off each other on Jessica’s “Spare Change,” a jocular but sadly telling song about the deeper lacks of those living on the street:

“Give a man a dollar, he’ll go get high,

But he’s looking for a comfort that money can’t buy.”

And his voice did a serviceable job of illustrating Blind Willie McTell’s “Mama It Ain’t Long Before Day.”

From that slide guitar tune, he segued into an instrumental version of Cat Stevens’ lovely, sad “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” on which the singing quality of his slide work carried as much lament as the song could hold.

As impressive at the other end of the emotional scale, Simpson’s recently penned “Santa Cruz” instrumental was a playful blend of American banjo stylings and the music of Madagascar, identified by cascading harp-like runs, with odd little rhythmic lurches that suggested the harpist had hiccups.

Another strong new original song was “Lilith,” which Simpson based on an apocryphal Bible tale and set to the traditional British tune “The Deserter,” which some might recall Fairport Convention tackling on its classic “Liege and Lief” album. Other selections included the fable-based “Icarus” by British writer Ann Lister; a Big Joe Williams blues that Simpson rendered in an odd cross of Bert Jansch and Bukka White; the Scottish tunes “Rosie Anderson,” “The Shearing’s Not for You” and “Bogie’s Bonnie Belle,” and the ballad aire “Lord Gregory.”