More often than not, Samantha Fish is the only guitar player in her band. But she has a good history of playing nice with others.
The Kansas City, Missouri, native has been at it since she was a teenager, and recording since 2009’s Live Bait with her Samantha Fish Blues Band. Over the years she’s teamed with Cassie Taylor and Dani Wild as Girls With Guitars and teamed with Texas titan Jesse Dayton on 2023’s Grammy Award-nominated Death Wish Blues. She’s also had albums produced by fellow guitarists such as Mike Zito, Luther Dickinson, Jon Spencer, Bobby Harlow of the Go and Martin Kierszenbaum.
“The music community is so special,” Fish tells us from her current residence in New Orleans. “I’m not talking about any specific region; it’s just a great community of musicians and people playing real instruments as we kind of tiptoe into this digital and, daresay, AI age. I’ve always been encouraged by people older than me and by my peers to grow and explore and not take any shortcuts or anything like that.”
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Fish’s collaborative acumen, meanwhile, has been best demonstrated on stage, where she’s been shown an open door from a wealth of colleagues — opportunities she certainly does not take for granted.
“Every time I’m onstage with a guitar player I feel like I learn something,” Fish acknowledges. “You watch their technique and approach and think about how that applies to how I do it. I feel like you can only do what you can do; I’ve gone toe to toe with people before and tried to turn it into a competition, like a lot of people do … and try to see who can out-gun each other.
“But I feel like the best musical things happen when it’s more of a conversation. So for me it’s, ‘What can I say that’s going to add to and elevate this?’ That’s how I approach jamming with people. That’s the most honest way to do it, not come with my stuff and outgun somebody.”
Fish, who released her latest studio album, Paper Doll, last year and Paper Doll Live earlier this year, recently announced this year’s edition of her Shake ’Em Down Tour, joined by Cedric Burnside and Daddy Long Legs for 14 dates starting December 2 in Pensacola, Florida, and wrapping up 18 days later in Louisville. She’s also writing songs for her next album, which Fish says “is still pretty vague to me. It’s taking a shape, but I’m not ready to say what that is — ’cause it will probably change.”
In the meantime, Fish took a few minutes to sit down and reminisce about some of her favorite onstage playing encounters.
Eric Gales
Among Fish’s career highlights is performing at Eric Clapton’s 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Los Angeles, collaborating with Eric Gales on her “Black Wind Hollow” during her set and then joining him for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” and the Alabama State Troupers’ “Going Down,” the latter with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
“That was one of those incredible invitations. I’ve always wanted to perform at Crossroads since, I think, 2010 when I stumbled on a DVD recording of the concert. That was just one of those things I put on the bucket list in my brain, in the back of my head, that if it ever happens again it would mean so much to be included.
“So when they invited me and wanted me to play with him — done! I’d played with Eric before, and he’s really one of the best, such an incredible performer and player. The way he puts together melodies, his note selection, he’s otherworldly. He takes you to space and back.
“To get the opportunity with him, and Kingfish as well, was really special. I felt like these are my friends. We’re in the blues community, so it’s special. Crossroads is a super-curated thing; I let them tell me what they wanted to do. I can’t remember if we chose ‘I Put a Spell on You’ or if they did; it might have been a request. It’s a big production and they’ve got this rotating stage; on one side somebody’s performing and on the other side it’s frantically trying to get our stuff set up so that when it rotates we’re ready to go. To put on that kind of a show it requires so much planning, to the minute. To the second, actually.
“There wasn’t any rehearsal; I sent Eric the song, ‘Black Wind Hollow,’ and we knew the others. We kind of talked out the changes and everything. But Eric’s band is so good, and they’re standards. There’s so many versions of them, I knew it would be something we could do really well together.”
Buddy Guy
“Buddy Guy somebody I’ve gotten the opportunity to perform with a few times, on the road opening shows and stuff. We played in Central Park together; Bobby Rush was there, too, so that was a cool show. He is one of the best conversationalists on guitar there is, hands down. He’s such an expert when it comes to that.
“I’ve learned a lot from Buddy over the years. He’s the truth; he tells the truth when he’s up there, and it’s nice to be able to bounce something back to him. Recently he was in New Orleans and I went to see the show and went backstage just to say hello. And he’s like, ‘You’re getting up, right?’ I had not planned on that, but of course I’m not gonna say no to an opportunity to learn something.”
Walter Trout
“Walter Trout is one of the first musicians I remember going to see as a young player, when he’d come to Kansas City and perform. I used to frequent this club called Knuckleheads a lot, and he was somebody the owner of the club was like, ‘You need to come see this guy. He’s gonna teach you something.’
“And he did. The guy is a very powerful guitar player, incredible story, incredible songs. It’s been awhile since we’ve played together, but it’s always great when we get the chance.”
Joe Bonamassa
“I’ve gotten to do the super jams on some of his cruises, and he’s a fun one to play off of, to go toe-to-toe with, as you say. He’s really super expressive and melodic, and he has way different ideas than I do, so it’s kind of fun to hear the way he puts notes together. That’s the fun part.
“I know he has a lot of amps up there — he’s definitely more into gear than I am — but it’s not as loud as you think. It’s workable. He’s got a lot of taste, and his band just sounds exceptional. They’re pristine.”
Slash
“I did a Slash tour, and that just made my little kid heart so happy, ’cause I was such a Guns N’ Roses fan. Do you know how many speeding tickets I got on Appetite for Destruction? So many that they almost took my license away. I told him that and he laughed — or gave me a pity chuckle. I’m not sure.
“He came out and played ‘I Put a Spell on You’ with us, and it was fun just to get to play with an icon like Slash, ’cause he’s such a great player and you can just tell it’s him in the way he plays. We did some back and forth; I wait a lot when I’m playing with somebody, ’cause I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.
“I was more or less sitting back, waiting to hear what he was gonna say and take my time to respond. That’s always a good way to approach playing with anybody, I think.”
Luther Dickinson
The lead singer and guitarist for the North Mississippi Allstars, Luther Dickinson produced two of Fish’s albums — 2015’s Wild Heart and 2017’s Belle of the West — and she calls him “one of my favorite guitar players to play with. He’s really melodic and fun. Every time I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in with him or whatever, he’s just got a way of building melodies and a dynamic, and his tone is some of my favorite guitar tone out there. And every time you play with him, it’s different. We never do the same thing twice.”
Jesse Dayton
“We did that Death Wish Blues album [2023] and a whole collaborative tour and got nominated for a Grammy together. I’ve always been the only guitar player in my band for the longest time, so when Jesse and I started working together it introduced this opportunity for me to approach things differently, and I learned so much from that time period.
“We were on the road together for 18 months, and it was fun for me to approach the guitar from this other level — ‘What can I do to complement the lead right now? What can I play in front? Behind?’ It made me a stronger guitarist. Just to have that back-and-forth dynamic was really, really cool.
“And he’s such an explosive player! That [King double-cut hollowbody] guitar he’s got is so big. The sound of it is just monstrous. For me it was, ‘All right, I’ve got to figure out how to complement this — not compete sonically but take up a different space.’ It was really fun and really interesting.”
