Cris Jacobs comes back to Annapolis at Rams Head On Stage

The Baltimore guitarist and songwriter hasn't played the Bay area since a 2024 park show. He's back on Saturday, January 16, in a 300-seat room.

The last time Cris Jacobs played around here, it was outdoors at Sandy Point State Park, on September 21, 2024. His next local show is indoors and a lot closer to the stage: Saturday, January 16, 2027, at Rams Head On Stage on West Street. The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are through AXS. The date was announced October 26.

Rams Head On Stage holds 300, and it's a seated room where people come to listen. For a player like Jacobs, that's the best setting there is.

He's a Baltimore musician, so this is close to a home game, and there's a long history behind it. He was a founding guitarist and singer in The Bridge, the Baltimore band that blended rock, blues, funk, folk and bluegrass from 2001 until it broke up in 2011, according to Wikipedia). Baltimore City Paper readers voted them the city's best band in 2005. He has said he toured with The Bridge until he was 33, playing around 200 shows a year, as he told Jmore.

The solo years have been about getting better as a songwriter. *Songs for Cats and Dogs* came out in 2012, followed by *Dust to Gold* in 2016, a 2017 album with Ivan Neville as Neville Jacobs, and *Color Where You Are* in 2019, per Wikipedia. The record he brought to Sandy Point was *One of These Days*, released April 26, 2024, on Soundly Music and produced by dobro great Jerry Douglas, according to the album's press release. Our listing puts his music in folk and country, and the Douglas album leaned that way, but the bluesy electric guitar has never gone far.

A Baltimore guitarist, a 300-seat listening room, and a January Saturday.

So what has changed in the two-plus years since? Mostly, he's had time on the road with those songs. When he came to Sandy Point, *One of These Days* was only five months old. By January, the material will have been through many nights of shows, and a room like Rams Head is where you can hear every detail of what he's done with it.

The calendar works too. Mid-January is quiet in Annapolis after the holidays, and a Saturday night on West Street with a good guitar player is a good way to break that up.

Buy early, since 300 seats isn't many for a local favorite, and get dinner downtown before the show.

Sources: The Bridge (band) (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Cris Jacobs (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Catching Up with Cris Jacobs, Formerly of The Bridge (Jmore) (jmoreliving.com); Cris Jacobs One Of These Days press release (All Eyes Media) (alleyesmedia.com); Cris Jacobs tickets (AXS) (axs.com)