From his Facebook page: "I'm a vegetarian blues singer from Oregon. I play slide guitar, write roots indie outlaw ganstagrass country blues songs and tour nationally." Gangstagrass, huh? I like that! We might have to steal that for a T-Shirt! David Jacobs-Strain has been the opening act on tour with Boz Scaggs, as well as hitting it hard with his band. Tonight they are in Frederick, Maryland, and that is in the relative backyard of the McBean Mansion. I wonder if Beans will take the Rolls out and head over to this evening's show? Nah, Beans works way too hard; that's why we have to take him on the road to have his fun. Otherwise, he is sequestered in a bunker below ground, making his Music Fog magic hour after hour!
Well, it's two days in a row for love songs here at the Fog. Yikes! I don't know what to make of that, either. My earliest music recollections were accompanied by their own 'sort' function. I knew Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons" was dead serious life stuff. I knew there was something going on below the belt with Jerry Lee Lewis, but I didn't know what it was. And I knew that romance was...well, it was different. To be honest, I didn't have much respect for it as an 8 year old, I just assessed it as silly grown up stuff. A bah humbug, why bother kind of thing. But today, it is a whole different story, isn't it? We yearn to be romanced, for that sweetness, that caring, and that devotion. Rare and wonderful to find. And I think, if I am honest, that so many of those songs back then had a smarmy, inauthentic quality, that in some way they just didn't ring true. But then when delivered by David Jacobs-Strain, there is no suspension of belief necessary. There is for real swooning, but in the best possible way. Here he is, from a month ago at the Americana Fest, in our Sweet Suite at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown, with "Dirt and Wildflowers." This one is both easy and earthy. You can find it on his CD Terraplane Angel, released this past spring, and produced by the legendary Ray Kennedy.
- Jessie Scott
