As regular readers will know, our delicate ears can’t cope with too much noise these days but one artist we are prepared to turn our hearing-aids up for is Kansas City, Missouri’s Samantha Smith who in 2023 was Grammy-nominated for “Contemporary Blues Album of the Year” for her collaboration with Jesse Dayton on Death Wish Blues. After launching her recording career in 2009, Samantha established herself as a rising star in the contemporary blues world, and she’s lined up a run of UK dates from the end of this month.
Her musical palate is wide and varied, also including country, funk, and bluegrass, and hey, she is on Rounder Records which is more or less a a guaranteed stamp of quality. The New York Times called Fish, “An impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power,” and “One of the genre’s most promising young talents.” Her hometown paper, the Kansas City Star wrote: “Samantha Fish has kicked down the door of the patriarchal blues club and displays more imagination and creativity than some blues veterans exhibit over the course of their careers.”
Samantha believes her musical future is an open road. “I’m never going be a traditional blues artist, because that’s not who I am,” she says. “But it’s all the Blues for me. When Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf came out, what they were doing didn’t sound like anything that had been done in Blues before. You’ve got to keep that kind of fire and spirit. I’m never going to do Muddy Waters better than Muddy Waters, so I try to be who I am, and in doing that, I find my best voice.”
Fish’s first-ever album recorded with her touring band, Paper Doll takes its title from the first song the Kansas City-bred musician penned for the LP: it’s described as a “raw yet reflective battle cry that perfectly encapsulates the album’s spirit of unapologetic defiance”. “That song’s a feminist anthem in a way—but then again, every song’s a feminist anthem when you’re a woman writing from your own experience,” says Fish. “It’s about rebelling against other people’s expectations of who you’re supposed to be, which feels pretty relevant for the times we’re living in right now.”
Recorded at The Orb in Austin and Savannah Studios in L.A., Paper Doll marks the latest entry in an uncompromising and endlessly adventurous catalogue that’s found her working with luminaries like Jon Spencer of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion as well as Luther Dickinson (co-founder of North Mississippi Allstars and former member of the Black Crowes). This time around, Fish reunited with Detroit garage-rock icon Bobby Harlow, who also produced her 2017 LP Chills & Fever. “When I look back on Chills & Fever I realize that Bobby was pushing me into some cool and dangerous places, but at that phase in my life I was holding back a bit,” she says. “Now I’m at a point where I’m ready to give people something totally unexpected, something that breaks the pop formula and really takes its time to tell a story with the guitar playing.”
“It’s about rebelling against other people’s expectations of who you’re supposed to be, which feels pretty relevant for the times we’re living in right now.”
For help in shaping Paper Doll’s rowdy but nuanced sound, Fish joined forces with bandmates Ron Johnson (bass), Jamie Douglass (drums), and Mickey Finn (keys), cutting most of the album amid a gruelling touring schedule that included a run of dates with Slash on the legendary guitarist’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. festival in summer 2024. “I’d never made a record on the road like that,” Fish reveals. “Even though it was so intense, it felt good to keep up the momentum from the live show. It helped us make an album that’s got a real living, breathing pulse to it.”
This might be the first and last time we ever mention Slash on AUK so find out for yourself when she hits our shores at the end of the month. Tickets are available via this link.
Samantha Fish 2026 UK Dates:
Feb 27th – York, Barbican
Feb 28th – London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Mar 1st – Bristol, O2 Academy
Mar 3rd – Birmingham Town Hall
Mar 4th – Manchester, O2 Ritz
Mar 5th – Newcastle, Wylam Brewery
Mar 6th – Edinburgh, Queen’s Hall
Mar 7th – Nottingham, Rock City
Saw her last year at Red Rooster – extraordinary thanks Mark