PORT TOWNSEND — David Jacobs-Strain’s crossroads came early.
This was the night he, a 9-year-old boy, saw singer Taj Mahal.
It’s 20 years later now, and Jacobs-Strain is still a young man from Eugene, Ore., who didn’t sell his soul back there.
Instead he got his soul — got in touch with it — thanks to Mahal and a host of other singers across the blues divide.
Jacobs-Strain is a devotee of Robert Johnson, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Steve Earle and Abby Mae & the Homeschool Boys, the band he played with when he’s come to the Olympic Peninsula in recent years.
Abby Mae and company have since disbanded, with singer Abby Latson forming a new duo with partner Dillan Witherow. The pair celebrates release of their debut CD “Standing on Shoulders” tonight at the CrabHouse, 221 N. Lincoln St., with a 7 p.m. concert.
On the road
Jacobs-Strain, meantime, is on tour with the Crunk Mountain Boys, a three-piece outfit he’ll bring to The Upstage on Saturday night. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for youth at the 8 p.m. show, and reservations can be made at 360-385-2216.
Around the country, Jacobs-Strain has sparked rapturous praise for his blues singing and playing. But he doesn’t limit his own descriptions to “blues.” Bluegrass, folk and rock ‘n’ roll run through his veins, too.
On this topic, he hearkens back to that night with Taj Mahal.
“I didn’t know what the genre was,” he said. “It’s not one.
“It’s soul, it’s reggae, it’s blues, it’s Appalachian folk.”
As for Jacobs-Strain’s Saturday night gig, it’ll be his own recipe.
“This show’s going to be a little bit rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. It will have a folk and blues feeling like his records, including “Terraplane Angel,” “Stuck on the Way Back” and “Ocean or a Teardrop.”
“I’ve always loved the idea of handmade music, people making music for each other,” said the artist.
Folky background
“I grew up going to folk festivals, and the bluesy side of it is how I’ve always been able to emote . . . I grew up playing solo, and I love that for how free it is. I felt I could go anywhere I want.”
But Jacobs-Strain has embarked on a new raft, this one with a few other players.
“This is first time I’ve had a band where it really flows,” he said of the Crunk Mountain Boys.
“We want to make art people can dance to,” Jacobs-Strain said. “We’ll throw in a couple of old swampy blues; a lot of originals. I’ll play my acoustic 12-string and also play my electric guitar.”
As he travels the country on a tour that’s taken him lately from Kodiak Island, Alaska, to New York City, Jacobs-Strain revels in dissolving borders.
“I feel like we’re in a renaissance of music,” he said. The divisions between blues, bluegrass, folk — “they’re not important anymore.
“How many people do you know who only listen to one kind of music?”
Superstar-to-be
Jacobs-Strain has been called a guitar virtuoso and even a superstar-to-be. But he’s after neither technical nor commercial flash.
“To me, what’s compelling is to go for the feel. Can I re-create that feeling I got from listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell?”
Production studios can do a lot for a musician, he added.
But nothing works like feeling the song, deep down. That’s what changes the sketch into a painting.
“What made Chicago blues, Delta blues, Piedmont blues great,” Jacobs-Strain believes, “were the songs, with their melodies and their lyrics that are rich, and humorous, and heartbreaking.”
‘The Voice’ audition
Jacobs-Strain’s tour will continue into December, and then he has one more thing to do before Christmas. It’s something that shows he has an open mind: an audition for “The Voice,” NBC television’s singing competition show.
“At first I said no, that’s not my style,” but then the show’s producers made an exception and allowed him to play guitar while singing. So he thought: What the heck. And who knows what might come of it.
“You want to be true to the music,” Jacobs-Strain said. “If you can bring that to a new group of people, great.”
