Biography
David Jacobs-Strain emerged as a distinctive presence across folk and blues festival stages through a guitar technique that blends longstanding and modern strains of both traditions. Although born in Connecticut, he relocated with his family to Eugene, Oregon, completed his diploma at South Eugene High School in 2001, and pursued higher education in Northern California.
He first supported his own singing on guitar at age nine, guided by the encouragement of local folksinger and guitar instructor Emily Fox. One of his earliest pieces was Bessie Smith’s “Backwater Blues,” after which his interest shifted more decisively toward blues than conventional folk repertoire. His parents introduced him to performances by Taj Mahal and Walker T. Ryan at the community theater, while repeated listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and Skip James deepened his command of earlier acoustic styles. Another key regional figure, Northern California guitarist Bob Brozman, performed in Eugene and prompted Jacobs-Strain to take up slide playing; one year afterward the younger musician opened for Brozman at the identical venue. By twelve he had already logged two years of public appearances, and as a high-school junior he appeared at Biscuits & Blues in San Francisco.
At twelve he also attended his initial Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop; by 1999 and 2000 he had become the event’s youngest faculty member, instructing alongside longtime idols John Cephas, Del Rey, John Jackson, Steve James, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. Additional study at the IGS Acoustic Guitar Workshop placed him with Brozman, Martin Simpson, John Renbourn, and Woody Mann, experiences that broadened his palette to encompass Indian, African, and Middle Eastern roots music along with Appalachian and British Isles folk traditions. In 2001 he joined the faculty of the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia, and has since appeared at Merlefest in North Carolina, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and New York’s Winterhawk.
Listeners drawn to the acoustic blues lineage of Brozman, Dave Van Ronk, or Stefan Grossman will recognize the same eclectic sensibility in Jacobs-Strain’s work. His discography comprises the independent 1998 release First Friday Live, the 1999 anthology Eugene Blues, the Burnside Records album Skin and Bones from the same year, Stuck on the Way Back (2002) and Ocean or a Tear Drop (2004) on Northern Blues Music, and the independently issued Liar’s Day in 2008. He continues touring and recording, introducing fresh audiences to the intricate simplicity of the blues.
He first supported his own singing on guitar at age nine, guided by the encouragement of local folksinger and guitar instructor Emily Fox. One of his earliest pieces was Bessie Smith’s “Backwater Blues,” after which his interest shifted more decisively toward blues than conventional folk repertoire. His parents introduced him to performances by Taj Mahal and Walker T. Ryan at the community theater, while repeated listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and Skip James deepened his command of earlier acoustic styles. Another key regional figure, Northern California guitarist Bob Brozman, performed in Eugene and prompted Jacobs-Strain to take up slide playing; one year afterward the younger musician opened for Brozman at the identical venue. By twelve he had already logged two years of public appearances, and as a high-school junior he appeared at Biscuits & Blues in San Francisco.
At twelve he also attended his initial Port Townsend Country Blues Workshop; by 1999 and 2000 he had become the event’s youngest faculty member, instructing alongside longtime idols John Cephas, Del Rey, John Jackson, Steve James, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. Additional study at the IGS Acoustic Guitar Workshop placed him with Brozman, Martin Simpson, John Renbourn, and Woody Mann, experiences that broadened his palette to encompass Indian, African, and Middle Eastern roots music along with Appalachian and British Isles folk traditions. In 2001 he joined the faculty of the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia, and has since appeared at Merlefest in North Carolina, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and New York’s Winterhawk.
Listeners drawn to the acoustic blues lineage of Brozman, Dave Van Ronk, or Stefan Grossman will recognize the same eclectic sensibility in Jacobs-Strain’s work. His discography comprises the independent 1998 release First Friday Live, the 1999 anthology Eugene Blues, the Burnside Records album Skin and Bones from the same year, Stuck on the Way Back (2002) and Ocean or a Tear Drop (2004) on Northern Blues Music, and the independently issued Liar’s Day in 2008. He continues touring and recording, introducing fresh audiences to the intricate simplicity of the blues.
Albums
