WEEKEND: Slide-guitar player to wow audiences, raise funds for Port Angeles’ First Step this Saturday

Published 12:01 am Friday, August 7, 2015

PORT ANGELES — David Jacobs-Strain, the slide-guitar player and song poet who has wowed audiences at Port Angeles’ Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, is coming back to a much cozier venue: the Renaissance cafe, 401 E. Front St., this Saturday night.

He’ll do a solo performance to benefit First Step Family Support Center, the nonprofit agency serving parents and children across Clallam County.

The event is sold out.

But a few tickets — $20 each, or $35 for a pair — may be available at the door if seats are available.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. concert.

Food and drink are available at the cafe, which is on the bluff at the intersection of Front and Peabody streets.

Parking is available on nearby streets.

Jacobs-Strain, who is from Eugene, Ore., was a teenager when he took his voice and guitar out to street corners and farmers markets. Then he got into Stanford University — and dropped out to play full time.

He was already appearing at festivals across the country, hailed as a blues prodigy. Jacobs-Strain strove, however, to develop his own sound, a seething mix of country blues, swamp rock and emotion.

“It just wasn’t enough to relive the feelings in other people’s music,” Jacobs-Strain writes on his website. “I wanted to tell new stories.”

He’s since released six albums including “Ocean or a Teardrop” (2004), “Terraplane Angel” (2010), “Live from the Left Coast” (2011) and “Geneseo” from two years ago.

To find out more and see some video, visit www.davidjacobs-strain.com.