David Jacobs-Strain is a virtuosic slide guitar player and a storyteller with a passionate one-man show that is both humorous and deeply lyrical. A bridge between today’s indie folk troubadours and the delta guitar slingers of the 1930s, David plays with precision and sings with emotional abandon. He’s a six-foot-two Jewish blues singer from Oregon, a Stanford drop out in a trucker hat, and a left coast poet; one part Leo Kotke, one part Ken Kesey, and one part Robert Johnson. Is it delta blues? Gangsta Grass? Geekabilly? Secular Humanist Gospel? It's a sound big enough to land David at the Newport Folk Festival – as a teenager, and later at Merlefest, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Fest, and on tour with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Etta James, Bob Weir, and Boz Scaggs (for three summer tours).

David’s new record Live from the Left Coast features harmonica legend Bob Beach. “Rainbow Junkies” could be a lost Jimmie Page tune and “Hurricane Railroad” grooves like a young David Lindley, while “Dirt and Wildflowers” is a quirky but sexy revelation (The Moldy Peaches meets Townes Van Zandt). The cascading harmonics and retro tinted lyrics of “Halfway to the Coast” and “Pescadero” evoke the damaged but wild northwest: heartbroken but beautiful, melodic and spare.

David also appears with his amplified string band The Crunk Mountain Boys.

“He is just one of the guys who is in his own class. A great singer and guitar player.” – Jorma Kaukonen

“The kid can sing and play guitar like he is 60 years old and had a lifetime of pain, pressure, and whiskey.” – Pop Matters

“David Jacobs-Strain sounds as if he is under the spell of old souls...he has absorbed country blues influences without sacrificing his own personality. It isn’t hard to imagine his tales being covered by John Hammond, Jr. or Boz Scaggs, for whom David has opened the show 64 times!” – Washington Post