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<\/p>\nEarly in her career, Missouri-born guitarist and singer Samantha Fish was featured on an album titled Girls With Guitars<\/i>. It’s difficult to imagine the Samantha Fish of today allowing herself to be billed that way. And though she’s won many awards in the blues idiom, Fish is determined not to be painted into a stylistic corner; her work of the last few years underscores that fact. Samantha Fish is currently touring in support of Kill or Be Kind<\/i>, her most varied collection of songs to date.<\/p>\n
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Your early material fit pretty neatly into the blues category, but about four or five years ago, you seem to have made a conscious effort to break out of that pigeonhole. Did you find the blues label uncomfortable or restricting?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, but as somebody who\u2019s been influenced by a pretty wide array of music, I felt compelled as an artist to spread out, to stretch out a little bit. And that\u2019s just a side effect. I never had any negative emotions about being linked to something like the blues genre, because it is the oldest, it\u2019s the truest, it\u2019s the rawest, most passionate genre there is. I don\u2019t feel any kind of restrictions with it, but there are certain people \u2013 certain purists in the genre \u2013 who believe it should be one certain way. As an artist I don\u2019t want to be held to that kind of strict standard of what exactly it should be. I think any kind of music form should be able to evolve over time.<\/p>\n
Your last four albums exemplify that perspective. I’d like you to reflect a bit on each of your four most recent albums, as far as what they represented in your progression as an artist. And we\u2019ll start with 2015’s Wild Heart.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
I worked with a new producer; I really connected with Luther Dickinson. He\u2019s one of my favorite guitar players on the contemporary scene. He produced Wild Heart <\/i>and Belle of the West.<\/i> And he really gave me a lot of freedom in the studio; he guided the sessions in a way that I could really get what I was trying to get out there across, but it\u2019s really musical. And I felt like Wild Heart <\/i>was a special album. It was sort of a breakthrough for me in a lot of ways. It\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n
Emotionally, I got a little more confidence when I finally got into the studio. I felt like, \u201cOkay, I belong here.\u201dSo much self-doubt was in play in my first two records; I just felt better about my life and situation when I was making Wild Heart.<\/i><\/p>\n
Chills & Fever<\/i> came out in 2017…<\/b><\/p>\n
We actually recorded Belle of the West<\/i> first. We had such a great time. It\u2019s kind of a long, convoluted story. I really fell in love with the Zebra Ranch studio, and I wanted to record an entire session in the style. We did two songs at that studio for Wild Heart,<\/i> and I wanted to do an entire album like that: semi-acoustic, all recorded really live. And you feel that when you listen to Belle of the West<\/i>; it\u2019s really an organic record. That\u2019s like my Nashville-meets-North-Mississippi album with lots of collaborations on it.<\/p>\n
We recorded Chills & Fever<\/i> after that, but it came out first just because I really felt like we had something high octane. I wanted to break out the band and build it up to the six piece and really step up our live show. Chills & Fever<\/i> was an album of covers from the ’50s and ’60s that were kind of obscure. We went to Detroit, and we recorded with former members of the Detroit Cobras, which was like a punk, rock and roll, blues band. They do a lot of R&B covers. So, that was kind of like my Detroit, rock and roll, R&B album. And we started spiking up the show with horns, and then released Belle of the West. <\/i><\/p>\n
I feel like Belle of the West<\/i> had a better impact because of Chills & Fever; <\/i>we released them in the same year. They were so different from one another, I feel like it was kind of a treat for the fans. Like, \u201cHere\u2019s two completely different albums.\u201d Because if they weren\u2019t so strangely different from one another, I don\u2019t think it would\u2019ve worked out as well as it did to release them so close.<\/p>\n
That leads us to Kill or Be Kind,<\/i> the new album. <\/b><\/p>\n
That\u2019s my first record with Rounder Records. The other ones were on Ruf. And I spent more time with this one. I feel like it\u2019s my most mature work. I wanted the guitar to be at the forefront, but not in a way that the songs are vehicles for guitar solos. I really wanted to focus on hooks and melodies, just songs that people can really connect to. I think songwriting takes a focus on this album, and I really liked working with Scott Billington. He gave me an opportunity to sing and perform and capture some of the live essence on the album. It\u2019s got that energy, which sometimes that\u2019s hard to capture in a studio. But it\u2019s definitely my most expansive album to date, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n
Even though you\u2019ve now moved very successfully beyond the confines of what the \u201cblues police\u201d would call the blues, your music still shows up well on the blues charts. One could argue that you\u2019ve managed to hold onto your core audience while expanding into other areas. Was that a goal?<\/b><\/p>\n
I think that we just have a good congregation of people who have been with us for a long time. They maybe love the live show, and the albums are a part of that journey. We live in an age where the live show is your bread and butter. An album is really a means to an end to tell a story. It\u2019s a legacy that\u2019s going to live on long after you\u2019re gone, but we all rely on the live show more. I think our fans are tried and true; they\u2019re coming to shows, they\u2019re buying tickets, they\u2019re part of this journey that\u2019s a little more than just buying an album and making a decision based on that.<\/p>\n
But I love blues music. I\u2019m a champion of traditional blues and where this came from, and it still plays a huge part in my music. So, whatever. I\u2019m not really too focused on people who want to argue it and say it\u2019s not bluesy enough. I know what inspires me.<\/p>\n