Touring musician David Jacobs-Strain will bring his bluesy ballads to Port Townsend for a concert at the Palindrome at Eaglemount Cidery.

The virtuoso will perform in town with veteran harmonica player Bob Beach at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 18 at the Palindrome in Port Townsend.

Tickets are $20 each and can be purchased at the door or at DJ-S.brownpapertickets.com.

Hailing from Eugene, Oregon, Jacobs-Strain has built a reputation as a blues-based signer-songwriter with the chops to keep up with best of them, and brings a wide-variety of sounds from swampy rock-and-roll to delicate balladry of the highest degree.

Jacobs-Strain got his first big chance in 2001 after current Rainshadow Recording owner Everett Moran — working for the Swallow Hill Music Association in Denver, Colorado at the time — needed an up-and-comer to open for the Coors Roots of the Blues Festival.

Looking for someone with enough skill and soul to play on the same stage with the likes of John Jackson, Corey Harris, Del Rey, and others, Moran’s friend and colleague, Mary Flower, suggested a young, 16-year-old kid from Oregon.

After a stand-out performance at the Colorado festival that was anything but rocky, Jacobs-Strain proved had the chops to hang and an old soul to boot.

Twenty years hence, and the prodigious, young bluesman has more than doubled in age but, arguably, has at least doubled in musical breadth. He’s evolved from a myopic student of the blues into one of the finest singer-songwriters of his generation and, yes, he still has the chops to hang with the best.

Jacobs-Strain’s most recent release was tracked at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, and mixed by Jim Scott (who worked with the legends like Tom Petty and Lucinda Williams).

Known for both his virtuosity and spirit of emotional abandon, his live show moves from humorous, subversive blues to delicate balladry, and then swings back to swampy rock and roll. It’s a range that ties him to his own generation, as well as to guitar-slinger troubadours like Robert Johnson and Jackson Browne.  

“I try to make art that you can dance to, but I love that darker place where, in my mind, Skip James, Nick Drake, and maybe Elliot Smith blur together,” Jacobs-Strain said.

He began playing on street corners and at farmers markets as a teenager in Eugene, Oregon, and bought his first steel guitar with the quarters he saved up. Before Jacobs-Strain dropped out of Stanford to play full time, he had already appeared at festivals across the country, often billed as a blues prodigy, but he had to fight to avoid being a novelty act.  

“I wanted to tell new stories. It just wasn’t enough to relive the feelings in other peoples music,” he explained.

The concert, organized by Rainshadow Recording, is sponsored by Strait Floors and KPTZ radio.