Cascade Blues Music Reviews Longest Road I Know David Jacobs-Strain Music Review Index

Music Review Reprint from the
June, 2001 BluesNotes
By Greg Johnson

• Highway Sixty-One Blues

• Going To Brownsville

• Bowlegged Charlie

• Wild Bill Jones

• Poor Black Mattie

• Bottle Up And Go

• Red Cross Store

• John Harding

• Lining Track

• Momma Don't You Know?

• Poor Boy

• Skin And Bones

• Silver On Your Decks

    Okay. So you say that it's not that unusual for a 17-year-old to want to play the guitar. But, let's be realistic; how many of those kids are going to want to play anything other than screaming, loud Rock & Roll?  Certainly the field narrows significantly when querying the number that would wish to pursue the Blues. "Oh yeah, man, like I can get into Stevie Ray Vaughan!!"  Well, how about Acoustic Blues?  Now we're talking pretty slim. But, that's exactly David Jacobs-Strain's forte.

    Like many other fine acoustic players before him, he has studied the greats and taken from them the best qualities they can offer. He's even learned his lessons so well that he can, in turn, teach; a feat that he has accomplished with a core group of some of today's most recognized musicians at the Centrum Port Townsend Blues Workshop, for his third consecutive year.  Impressive?  You bet.  Especially when you consider that the faculty also includes elder Blues masters the likes of Philadelphia Jerry Ricks, John Cephas and John Jackson, all of whom have nothing but the best of respect for David's talents.

    One thing that David Jacobs-Strain has achieved in his brief lifetime is how to take command of a stage.  Again, when you're young it's easy to hide your lack of experience when playing in a group setting that can offset one another.  Not so as a single musician playing bare-knuckles guitar with no amplification to distort the sound you're creating. And, David excels at performing with absolutely no fear in sight whatsoever. His latest CD is certainly testament to this effect.

    "The Longest Road I Know" is a collection of live dates that David has played during the past year at a handful of West Coast settings stretching from Tacoma, Washington to Berkeley, California.  The material he has chosen is an example of his influences, ranging from early Acoustic Bluesman, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Sleepy John Estes, to modern heroes like R.L. Burnside and Otis Taylor.  Each song is reworked effectively and delivered in a manner that holds a bright outlook for David's future as a musician and songwriter. His original number, "Silver On Your Decks", stands easily alongside the traditional numbers it follows and as a whole, this CD should be turning heads all over the country. Pick up on David Jacobs-Strain now, because talent like this cannot be hidden from the rest of the Blues world forever. Once they do catch on, he's going to find himself in constant demand and we can look back and say, "I remember seeing him when. . . " If you enjoy straight-forward Acoustic Blues, then this is one recording you'll want to check out.

© 2001 Cascade Blues Association