Jim Washburn’s Concert Picks

1. Tom Waits (Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles). In a benefit show in the wake of the L.A. riots, Waits and a small, aggressive band fleshed out his story songs with the scope and eerie resonance of a Werner Herzog film, taking blues roots music and sending it howling into the future.

2. Clive Gregson and Christine Collister (McCabe’s, Santa Monica). Despite already having split maritally, this criminally overlooked British duo made its farewell show an incredible tour de force of Gregson’s heart-rending songs and Collister’s heartbreaking voice.

3. Al Green and Derek & the Diamonds (Coach House, San Juan Capistrano). When he’s on, the Rev. Al ranks as one of the greatest live entertainers, mixing a gospel fervor with a rakish personality and an incredibly nimble, soulful voice. Green was at his best this night, having to follow an incandescent, roof-raising set by O.C. singer Derek Bordeaux and his band.

4. Utah Phillips (Shade Tree Stringed Instruments, Laguna Niguel). One-time hobo, lifelong activist Phillips reached home with avuncular warmth, hilarious humor and an incisive eye in his folk songs and tales home at the intimate guitar-shop venue.

5. Chris Gaffney & the Cold Hard Facts (Canyon Inn, Yorba Linda). Another boon to the local scene, Gaffney and his tight, distinctive band play every Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Canyon Inn and are consistently better than 90% of the country acts you’ll hear on radio. When suitably inspired, Gaffney also does a mean Louis Prima impersonation.

6. Martin Simpson (Shade Tree). Because Richard Thompson made no local appearances this year (don’t miss him at the Coach House Jan. 24), it fell to fellow Brit Simpson to provide 1992’s most spellbinding display of acoustic-guitar wizardry.

7. Little Village (Pantages, Los Angeles). This would have been hands-down the best show of the year if this supergroup of John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner had been able to sustain the fire it generated on its strongest songs. Those were so good it was scary, while the rest was just all right.

8. James Brown (Long Beach Blues Festival). After his drug descent and incarceration, Soul Brother No. 1 is back, and, boy, is he ever on his good foot. He sang. He danced. He shrieked. He fell to his battered knees. He had his band running tight and hot. He hasn’t performed this well since the mid-’70s, and it was heartwarming to see.

9. Jonathan Richman (Bogart’s, Long Beach). Bear in mind a possible bias here--I played bass a bit on Richman’s current album--but I think his barely amplified one-man show is entirely what rock ‘n’ roll is all about: chance-taking, naked and direct.

10. A tie: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Buena Park Hotel) and the Gipsy Kings (Irvine Meadows, Irvine). Pakistani Sufi singer Ali Khan and the King’s Nicolas Reyes have two of the most passionate, melismatic, yearning voices on earth. Both shows were vocal knockouts.