Guitarist on the Go

Martin Simpson must feel like a pinball right about now.

Though hardly a household name, the bluesy, folk-based guitarist ricochets around the world. Before participating in last weekend’s International Music Products Assn. convention in Los Angeles, Simpson had just returned from a weeklong stint at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Scotland.

Over the past two years, Simpson has also squeezed in work on four albums, including a heralded collaboration with Chinese pipa player Wu Man, as well as toured solo and as part of the Masters of Slide Guitar package with Bob Brozman and Indian string wizard Debashish Battacharya.

Simpson will appear locally Saturday at Shade Tree Stringed Instruments in Laguna Niguel, giving a guitar workshop and a solo performance. Plans include work with fellow Englishman and guitarist Adrian Legg and Chinese fiddler Jie-Bing Chen. Still, rather than feeling overwhelmed--or exhausted--Simpson seems rejuvenated.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” he said by phone from his home in Santa Cruz, where he and his wife have lived since the early ‘90s. “I have a reputation for being creative, and it allows me to simply do more things. I tend to jump on opportunities, because if you turn down a chance to work with a brilliant musician, you might not get asked again.”

Simpson says collaboration fuels both his personal and professional lives.

“There’s nothing quite as rewarding as sitting down to make music with someone who is stylistically very far from what you do,” he explained. “I can’t tell you what a tremendous feeling it is when you work together and it clicks--and you’re both expanded in the process.”

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Simpson, 44, spent his early years in Great Britain playing alongside Richard Thompson, Steeleye Span, the Albion Band and singer June Tabor, among others. In 1985, he married an American singer, songwriter and poet. Settling in New York, the couple formed a musical partnership that has produced three albums, including last year’s superbly crafted “Band of Angels.”

On his own, Simpson cross-pollinates English, Scots and Irish with Afro-American and American musics. The roots for this cultural convergence reach back to his days growing up in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, where he encountered many musical influences. His father enjoyed opera and Victorian parlor ballads, and his older brothers listened to rock, jazz, R&B; and the blues. Simpson frequented a folk club near his home, and as a teenager he met the legendary Big Joe Williams at a local blues festival.

“When I was young, I was listening to the blues and old-timey music from the States. In Britain, it was traditional English song and Irish music that we all enjoyed,” Simpson recalled. “It always felt to me like it was two ends of the same spectrum.”

After he moved to the States, Simpson realized that he had been dead right.

“American traditional music is essentially the amalgam of those styles. . . . African American and Northern European music crashing up against each other and cross-fertilizing. That’s the sphere . . . I grew up in, and now use, to express myself. I just keep trying to learn more about it so I can push it a bit further.”

Simpson’s latest release, “Cool & Unusual” (Red House Records), is a stellar collection of instrumental adaptations of traditional British and American folk tunes. Lending a hand on the lap slide acoustic guitar and bowed tambur is pal and string wizard David Lindley. Still, it’s Simpson who dazzles most often with his sensual, sometimes-spooky passages on the acoustic, steel-bodied and slide guitars, and on the cumbus, a six-string, banjo-like Turkish instrument. Simpson and his mates--also featuring members of the Malagasy ensemble Tarika Sammy--bring an eclectic, modern edge to the mostly traditional material.

A tough order?

“The best of traditional music is absolutely timeless,” Simpson said. “So it’s not that hard if you give the material some honest, emotional examination. Like on this blues album [1995’s ‘Smoke and Mirrors’] where I did this version of ‘Delia,’ that very traditional ragtime song. Only I arranged it so it doesn’t have that here-we-go-again rag. It works for me on every level. . . . It could be a completely contemporary song.”

Simpson relishes the chance to absorb his ever-changing surroundings, and he insists he will learn as well as instruct during Saturday’s guitar workshop. Topics will range from controlling pitch and vibrato for expressive slide playing to experimenting with right-hand technique for bigger and varied colors.

“The major reward of teaching,” Simpson said, “is that it forces you to examine what you do.

“What I try to impress among beginners is the importance of making an emotional connection with the listener, as well as appreciating the sheer beauty that music affords all of us.”

For Simpson, music conveys a sense of humanity in a world that’s often impersonal and out-of-whack.

“There’s nothing like the intimacy of the acoustic guitar,” he said. “You don’t need a piece of wire or an amp. All you need is the instrument, and it’s extremely expressive and graceful. I just keep trying to come closer to it so I can get more out of it.”

* Martin Simpson plays Saturday at Shade Tree Stringed Instruments, 28062-D Forbes Road, Laguna Niguel. 7:30 p.m. $20. His guitar workshop runs noon-2 p.m., $30 advance or $35 at the door. (714) 364-5270.