Guitarist Samantha Fish is an artist on the ascent. Though she has certainly made a name for herself as a blues dynamo with relentless touring over the past several years, things have been going really well as of late. How well? Consider the following:
Last fall, Fish performed in Los Angeles at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads guitar festival, a curated gathering of some of the best guitar players on the planet. Earlier this year, Fish was nominated for a Grammy award – along with Jessie Dayton – for their collaborative album Death Wish Blues. This summer, she has been playing solo shows and performing as part of Slash’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival tour, a traveling blues extravaganza.
This fall, she will join the Experience Hendrix tour, which presents multiple guitarists (Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Eric Johnson, Zack Wylde et al.) exploring the repertoire of Jimi Hendrix (the Houston stop for the tour is Thursday, October 10, at the Bayou Music Center). Oh, and just a couple of weeks ago, Fish opened for the freaking Rolling Stones on the final date of the band’s U.S. tour (see video below).
In the midst of all this action, she will, fortunately, have time to make a quick trip to Houston, performing at the Heights Theater on Friday, August 2. Speaking from her home between gigs, Fish is enjoying a well-deserved respite before heading back out on the road. As of late, she’s been rubbing shoulders with a serious bunch of fellow plank spankers. Is it dangerous having so many guitarists in one place at the same time?
“Well, everybody’s tasteful, so that’s the best part about it,” Fish says. “Under normal circumstances, I guess I’d be terrified, but everybody is such a monster, but so tasteful – they know when to play, when not to play.”
“I was a little nervous, like ‘This is something you’ve wanted for a long time. Don’t fuck it up!’”
Focusing on Slash’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour, which includes Warren Haynes, Larkin Poe, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Eric Gales, Fish is, understandably, enthusiastic. “I think it’s going to be an incredible showcase, not only for, obviously, the guitar, but for blues music, showcasing how diverse the genre is,” she says. “All of the artists on this bill, they’re amazing. They’re doing their version, their spin on the blues, and everything’s different.
“I think that people get the idea that [blues] is really simple, one specific thing. And in 2024, [blues] is like all the genres of music. It’s like rock music is not just one thing, it’s a lot of things. So I think it’s cool that people are going to get to see that.”
Harkening back to Clapton’s Crossroads festival, Fish says that her appearance marked the fulfillment of a long-held ambition. “That’s something that I’ve wanted to do since the very start of my career. So there was a full-circle moment for me, and I was a little nervous, like ‘This is something you’ve wanted for a long time. Don’t fuck it up!’ But everybody there was so cool, it was so relaxed, and so well put together. I really enjoyed that experience. I got to meet a lot of wonderful people, people I look up to, and it was one for the books, really.”
But meanwhile, Fish is enjoying her brief down time before jumping back on the tour bus. “The road is such a different environment from my life at home,” she says. “There’s this hyper-routine; every day is the same as yesterday. I know what time load-in is, and there’s sound check, and there’s a schedule set for the whole day.
“The bus is completely encapsulated. There’s a time vortex. But everyone in our band and crew gets along really well, and I’m lucky for that, because that can be a real downer when people are at odds.
“When we get a day off, though, if we’re in a fun place, we want to go and see the cool things. Everybody in this group, we’re all tourists at heart. We just want to make the most of our time out there, because you never know when you’re going to get to go back.”
On the other hand, sometimes a quiet stop is not a bad thing. “Last year, I remember staying in some place, like Utah, and there was literally just this one hotel, and there was one restaurant in the hotel, and if you missed the hours of operation, you were done. And I remember that day so vividly, because we were all like, ‘Really? This is what we’re going to do?’
“But we hung out in the parking lot, we were doing yoga, we went on a little hike. But it was kind of nice. I think everybody needed that day just to recover. So sometimes it’s good just to do nothing. But if I can burn the candle at both ends, I absolutely will!”
Samantha Fish will perform at 8 p.m. on Friday, August 2, at the Heights Theater, 339 W. 19th St. For more information, call 214-272-8346 or visit TheHeightsTheater.com.
For more on Samantha Fish, visit SamanthaFish.com.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
