Bryan Jacobs has made one CD, 'Remington Steel,' and hopes to record another soon. Visit the Photo Place

Fauquier man has the blues

Fauquier County farm boy is happy singing the blues.

By DONNIE JOHNSTON

Date published: 1/8/2006

By DONNIE JOHNSTON

Bryan Jacobs picks up a strange-looking guitar and runs a metal slide up and down its neck with his left hand.

With a thumb pick and carefully manicured fingernails, his right hand picks out the melody of an old song that few listeners would even recognize, let alone be able to play or sing.

Taking care to wait until the last reverberating note has completely faded away, Jacobs looks up and smiles.

"I play something most people around here don't play."

While most musicians in the area are picking out either country or rock 'n' roll tunes, Jacobs is playing what he calls a mixture of Piedmont and Delta blues.

And he plays this typically Deep South music extremely well.

"He's probably one of the best slide blues players in the country," says veteran guitarist Tommi Reynolds, who owns and operates Culpeper Music Center. "It's so natural for him. He plays like he was born in the blues era."

One might consider the blues to be an odd venue for an old Fauquier County farm boy who cut his teeth on traditional country music and then took a healthy bite out of the heavy rock sounds of the early 1970s.

Jacobs doesn't agree.

"The blues is the root of rock 'n' roll," he says, referring to the Memphis and northern Mississippi sound that influenced the likes of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis.

"The blues also had a profound influence on early country music and bluegrass," Jacobs continues. "In the 1930s, if you were white you called it country; if you were black you called it the blues."

Jacobs also finds a deep connection to the blues and country music of the late 1940s and '50s.

"It's the same chords--G, C and D--whether you play the music of Hank Williams or Mississippi John Hurt," he says.

Mississippi John Hurt: To most music fans, this name is about as unrecognizable as the three-speaker, metal-bodied Resofonic guitar that Jacobs plays.

To true blues enthusiasts, however, Mississippi John Hurt is one of the godfathers of the music that made cities like New Orleans famous. And Jacobs cites Hurt as one of his strongest influences.

Date published: 1/8/2006