“David Jacobs-Strain keeps his music on the map. His songs may evoke feelings of the south, but David Jacobs-Strain knows where he comes from. Representing western Oregon, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter strives for his lyrics to maintain a sense of place while his music keeps a southern roots vibe. “That feels important to me not to try to pretend to be from somewhere else, even though the sounds that I use or what I evoke are even from another place and time,” he says. “I want to evoke where I’m really from in the songs.”

And although Jacobs-Strain knows where his songs fall on the map, he tries to keep them out of a genre box by throwing out terms like “geekabilly” and “gangster grass” before settling on the self-description of indie rock-infused delta blues.” 

- Cody Calamaio - gazette.net

Review of Live From The Left Coast

“It’s great to hear twenty-somethings like Jacobs-Strain, here artfully shadowed by harmonica virtuoso Bob Beach, continuing to take the blues in fresh new directions but, then again, with the equally imaginative Otis Taylor and Bob Brozman as mentors, what else would you expect?

Recorded live at the Rolling and Tumbling temporary juke joint in Eugene, Oregon, the well-traveled musician brightly brings his primal slide guitar sound to the millennials generation with an eclectic vision that merges blues, folk, rock and indie pop into an engaging Americana brew with pockets of funk and reggae around the edges. A trio of covers pay homage to other early heroes with Taj Mahal’s “Big Legged Mamas” getting a bouncy setting, Stephen Stills’ “Treetop Flyer” turned into an extended rumination and Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen” suffused with some nearly hollering slide work.

Impressive Jacobs-Strain originals include the ballad “Halfway To The Coast,” the anti-war song “Ocean Or A Teardop,” a Northern California travelogue called “Pescadero Beach” and the buoyant set opener “Rainbow Junkies,” with Beach’s Sonny Terry-influenced harp work the perfect foil.”

- Gary von Tersch-big city blues magazine

“David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beach blew me away last summer at Swannanoa. As we say at home, they knocked my hat in the creek. I can’t envision the audience that could fail to take to them from the first chord and to the last. Hear them yourself as soon as you can.”

— TOM PAXTON