Ten Top Tracks from . . . Samantha Fish

This one’s gonna be tricky.  Long time Blues Enthused readers (assuming there are some) will have realised a while back that Samantha Fish has become one of my favourite artists.  She’s now racked up seven albums*, plus her Death Wish Blues collaboration with Jesse Dayton, and I’ve enjoyed all of ‘em big time – though funnily enough I don’t think she has yet racked up a perfect 10 score with any of these releases.
Still, that’s a fair number of songs to choose from, and even following the Ten Top Tracks principles that this is not a league table, it’s a personal chronological overview, and I could put together a whole different list on another day, picking out just ten tunes ain’t easy. But I'm also

inclined to venture off the beaten path a bit to make things more interesting. So let’s get the ball rolling – and as ever, watch out for links to the selected tracks on YouTube, and to reviews of some of the albums too.
As with some other artists who have become personal favourites, I first came across Sam Fish in the October 2013 issue of The Blues Magazine, which ran for a few years in Britain until 2016.  There was an interview with her linked to the release of her second album Black Wind Howlin’, which made her sound interesting, and as a taster a track was included on that month’s covermount CD sampler, which was enough to make me get a download of the album.  And at some point during my first few listens to it I had an epiphany during ‘Kick Around’, the second track.
‘Kick Around’ is a relatively simple, sparky boogie, on which her producer Mike Zito also contributes guitar and backing vocals.  Samantha is giving a characterful vocal performance, when two thirds of the way through she reaches the lines “With open arms and an open heart / I’ve been here from the very start / But I won’t go down on your sinking ship no more,” and on those last two words her voice just flies!  “Holy shit,” I thought, “this girl can sing!”  But that wasn’t all, because on the sizzling guitar solo that follows – possibly by Zito, who is credited with lead guitar on the track – she whoops and hollers at regular intervals in a way that transmits innocent, spontaneous joy.  And that’s it, I was hooked.
Sadly I’ve never heard Fish play ‘Kick Around’ live, and indeed she’s very selective about the tracks she plays from her first two albums.  I get the impression she regards them as immature stuff, like she was on a learning curve and they don’t count for much.  Which is a pity, because there are good songs in different styles littered all over them.
Elsewhere on Black Wind Howlin’, for example, you’ll find the tender and rueful rejection song ‘Over You’, on which she delivers a lovely vocal and sensitive guitar work.  Also in a low key vein there’s the slinky solo acoustic outing of ‘Let’s Have Some Fun’, featuring some imaginative

chord work.  On ‘Last September’ she even knocks out some warm, Zydeco-tinged rootsiness, complete with fiddle.  But for my second pick let’s hear Samantha get heavy, with the lurching, grinding, slithering ‘Heartbreaker’ (not to be confused with the Stones' song '(Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker', which she's been known to play live now and then).  It may not be a flat-out rocker, but is still a hefty beast that highlights her early adoption of slide guitar – and is the very track that appeared on that Blues Magazine CD.
Naturally enough I soon got hold of Samantha’s debut album Runaway, and again there are several gems among the 10 tracks.  The title is a rattling boogie (though Sam claims to scarcely know the words these days), and ‘Down In The Swamp’ is a tense, atmospheric heavy blues.  I’m tempted by the relaxed but dark storytelling on the twangy blues of ‘Today’s My Day’, and also by the lop-sided groove of the bohemian sounding ‘Otherside Of The Bottle’.  But I’m going to choose a song that’s very unusual in the Samantha Fish canon.  It's true that she’s done lots of slow songs, and stripped back songs, but ‘Feelin’ Alright’ is something else – a breathy, intimate and, yes, seductive performance that’s pretty damn remarkable for a kid who hadn’t quite reached 21 when she wrote and recorded it.  And that’s my general take-away from these first two albums – that whatever Samantha Fish may think of them herself, they’re way more interesting than the run of the mill blues fare you might have expected someone in her youthful shoes to produce.
Her next release, Wild Heart, is a case of what might have been.  Split almost evenly between tough blues-rockers and more sensitive tunes, when it's good it's very very good, but two sub-par tunes - ‘Road Runner’ and ‘Wild Heart’ - let the side down a bit.  To accentuate the positive though, I’m going to highlight both a rocker and a stripped back song.
The upbeat stuff here includes two heavyweight tracks that rarely see the light of her day in her live shows, ‘Turn It Up’ and ‘Show Me’.  The first features a stonkingly tough riff, and a lead guitar turn from producer Luther Dickinson as it accelerates towards its finish.  But I’m going for ‘Show Me’, with its Led-heavy descending riff, and La Fish wailing fit to bust on the clattering chorus, demonstrating that the lady really does know how to put the hammer down.

Fish really spoils us when it comes to more reflective songs on Wild Heart, including the spellbinding ‘Go Home’, with which I’ve seen her reduce an audience to stunned silence in the past, and the haunting, introspective break-up song ‘Lost Myself’.  But my favourite - I think - is the delicious cover of Junior Kimbrough’s ‘I’m In Love With You’ with which she closes the album.  It’s a simple, hypnotic song, but feels relaxed, sun-dappled, and just marvellously contented.
Chills & Fever was a bolt from the blue when it was released in 2017.  A collection of soul/R’n’B covers recorded in Detroit, it’s bursting with dance tracks and torch song covers which Fish delivers with style and swagger, summed up by the sassy title track and the heartache of ‘Never Gonna Cry’.  But for sheer untrammelled fun my pick is the breathless ‘Somebody’s Always Trying’, announced by Sam with a bawled “Yea-ea-eeahhll!” worthy of Lulu on ‘Shout’, and featuring some wonderful, teasing guitar.  (By the by, I’ve never felt that the tough stomper ‘Crow Jane’, while a great song, really fitted in this collection.  Now if it had been on Wild Heart instead of those weaker tracks I mentioned . . . .)
Released later the same year, Belle Of The West was a complete contrast.  It’s a collection of semi-stripped back songs produced by Luther Dickinson once again, and featuring a bundle of his North Mississippi compadres.  Often an elegiac, understated affair, it features offbeat rhythms, back porch harmonising, and weeping violin from Lillie Mae on some tracks.  In that vein I heartily recommend the spooky, edgy ‘Don’t Say You Love Me’ and the vivid storytelling of the title track.  But I can’t resist selecting ‘Gone For Good’, one of my favourite Fish songs and often a rollicking highlight of her live show – and that being the case I’m cheating, and sharing a live, more electrified version from 2021.
After Belle Of The West Fish signed a new record deal with Rounder Records, for whom her first outing was Kill Or Be Kind.  It opens with ‘Bulletproof’, which has become something of a signature song, and other tracks such as the dark and heavy ‘Watch It Die’ and quasi-psychedelic ‘Dream Girl’ have been mainstays of her set for long spells.  The only problem with KOBK, to my mind, is that it tailed off with the closing couple of tracks, ‘Dirty’ and ‘You Got It Bad’, both good songs but not the final exclamation mark that was required.  No matter, I want to draw your attention to two tracks in the middle of the album.  First up there’s ‘Fair-weather’, a sad song revolving around some Beatle-ish twinkling guitar notes and Sam’s vulnerable,

reflective vocal, which is notable for the fact that Fish, normally the Queen of Melisma, here keeps her delivery dead straight throughout.  Oh yeah, and there’s a killer key change as a knockout punch. ‘Love Your Lies’, meanwhile, is a perky, power-poppy slice of rock’n’roll, with a delightful, scratchy little guitar break.  Did it hint at Sam having imbibed some punkish classics somewhere along the way?
Which brings us neatly to her most recent solo album Faster, on which Fish pretty much took a wrecking ball to past expectations of her, from the downright wicked album cover onwards, stirring not just New Wave-ish pop into the mix, complete with safety-pin scrabbling guitar breaks, but also electronic dance grooves and even – nurse, the screens! - a guest turn by rapper Tech N9ne.  It’s terrific fun listening to her pinballing around all these styles, though a couple of songs sag a bit in the middle.  But I’ve only got one pick left, so what’s it to be?  The gritty throb of ‘Faster’ itself?  The groove and gloss of ‘All Ice No Whiskey’?  The rattling punkishness of ‘So-Called Lover’?  All good options, but I’m going for the needling, curled lip earworm of ‘Better Be Lonely’, a tale of lust and jealousy set to pulsing bass and a snapping beat, shot through with razor-like guitar.
No room here for anything from Death Wish Blues, Samantha’s dynamic duo 2023 album with outlaw country rocker Jesse Dayton – but hey, you can’t have everything.  Some of you may also be wondering why I haven’t included her much acclaimed take on ‘I Put A Spell On You’, or other live diversions such as 'War Pigs'.  Well if that’s your fancy then by all means go for it as your own personal encore.
Samantha Fish has got itchy feet, artistically.  I suspect she’s also a canny, ambitious woman who wants to expand her audience^ well beyond the borders of the blues and blues-rock, and is prepared to move fast and break things to do it.  She’s already come a long way from Runaway to Faster –  her next adventure might just see her shoot for the moon.

You can find a playlist containing all ten tracks on the Blues Enthused YouTube channel, here.

*I'm not including her independent album Live Bait, or the Girls With Guitars collaboration for Ruf Records.

^Six years ago Samantha gave a lengthy and interesting interview about her career, and particularly the business side of being a professional musician, which you can find here.

All photographs by Iain Cameron @bluesenthused.com.

Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton - Death Wish Blues

Coming soon to a drive-in near you . . .
 

DEATH WISH BLUES

 
Don’t miss the thrilling tale of Sam and Jesse, a deadly duo of star-crossed rock’n’roll outlaws, hustling gigs from town to town.
 
They’re on the road . . .
They're wearing leather . . .
And they
PLAY GUITAR!
 
Or sump’n like that.  I mean, I'm not sure Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton would tell you Death Wish Blues is any kinda concept album.  But still - clad in danger signal yellow/black artwork, the whole Bonnie’n’Clyde schtick is there if you want it.

Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton - Natural Born Killers

Pic by Melrose Kaelan Barowski

I mean, who’s seducing who on the darkly throbbing opener ‘Deathwish’?  Backed by a slithering riff, Fish jabs out a lyric about a woman advancing on a guy standing in the shadows at a party, sticking his hand on her shoulder, and feeling his breath on her neck as he leans in for a “kiss like a death wish," inspiring some hectic guitar soloing.  And is this the same twosome that head off down the highway on ‘Riders’, grifting a rock’n’roll living with (so to speak) one-night stands from coast to coast?  Here they're propelled by some funky, squelchy keyboards, prodding bass and six-string stings, while the chorus adds raunch that's underlined by a warped, buzzsaw guitar break.
These are troubled characters though, our hero declaring on ‘Trauma’ that because of her he has “fever in my dreams” but “it’s never gonna stop me loving you”, over a shuffling rhythm from Aaron Johnston on drums, edgy, spaced out guitar notes and a twitching riff.  Then that trauma erupts into a squall of guitar over a Zep-like bridge, as the track heads towards an agonised conclusion.  In response, Fish delivers the very Fish-like love song ‘No Apology’, opening with vulnerable, aching vocals, insisting that “I can’t be your enemy and your everything,” but that “It’s you, you that I want,” and eventually launching into soulful vocal territory on a tune that wouldn’t have been out of place on Chills And Fever.
But there’s helpless heat for each other too, as on 'Flooded Love', on which they recall “We knew the levee was gonna break, so we did it again for old time’s sake”.  It's all rumbling bass, snapping drums and low-slung ‘Peter Gunn’ riffing as Dayton and Fish go at it together on vocals, the flood a metaphor as “Feeling reckless, we both explode”.  The tension rises until the dam busts open musically and the bridge comes tumbling out in a maelstrom of guitar, before they pound their way to another, er, climax.  It’s love and hate o’course, as they taunt each other on the rattling rockabilly of ‘Lover On The Side’ that “You ain’t my woman,” and “You damn sure ain’t my man”.  It’s a conversational duet, full of prickly guitar culminating in an itchy’n’scratchy solo and a bridge in which the pair of ‘em get, shall we say, a bit overheated.  Meanwhile ‘RIppin’ And Runnin’’ builds slowly through an acoustic blues picking intro, booming kick drum and pulsing bass, with Fish breathily demanding “Come on baby, why don’t you do something for me?”  We’re talking steamy provocation over grimy guitar and quirky keyboard vibrations, clambering its way to a barbed-wire guitar solo.
Yessir, these are, like the song says, ‘Dangerous People’.  “Trust me,” Fish drawls over junkyard percussion, “a crook knows another crook”, en route to a big, catchy chorus proclaiming “We’re dangerous, don’t play with us, unless you wanna get busted”.  And if that trails off a bit inconclusively, it’s only to make way for the high-octane party animal of ‘Supadupabad’, a two-minute rollercoaster ride of a familiar-sounding juddering riff laced with needling guitar and squiggling keys in the background, while Dayton makes chuckling, basso profundo conversation about “drinking Courvoisier from a crystal cup”.
There’s other good stuff along the way that maybe doesn't fit the imaginary film noir script, like ‘Down In The Mud’, which opens with a lurching chorus before diverting into the pulsating funkiness of its verses, with distorted spoken interventions from Dayton and some bristling guitar breaks.  And there’s ‘Settle For Less’, a pithy “no half measures” commentary with tick-tock percussion and a needling vocal from Fish, added to an explosive rocking chorus and some wiry guitar work.
Finally, there’s what one might consider the epilogue of ‘You Know My Heart’, a ballad that’s firmly in the Fishy waters of ‘Go Home’ and its ilk, a duet with Stonesy strummin’an’pickin’ and a sensitive harmonised chorus.  There’s a key change as it swells romantically towards its end, with Fish adding some trademark soulful vocal remarks over squealing but restrained guitar.

Death Wish Blues is a deceptive album.  You could call it an exercise in garage band alt.blues, or some such.  But with the assistance of producer Jon Spencer there are a lot of twists and turns packed in here – in fact there’s a lot packed into each of these 12 short’n’sharp songs, with the scribbling, doodling keys throwing frequent stabs of funk into the mix.  When you get down to it Death Wish Blues is 21st century rock’n’roll, with Jesse Dayton cast as a leather-clad Link Wray rebel - and hey, they really should work 'Rumble' into their live set - and Samantha Fish as his cigar-box toting femme fatale.  It’s full of personality, which suits Fish, who has often cleaved to character-based songs, and here plays sassy, troubled bad girl types with considerable relish.
I had some doubts about this project, after taking in a rather underwhelming live show by Fish and Dayton last month.  But the album works.  It’s fresh and it’s fun, and invested with some neat story-telling.  Go get some popcorn, and enjoy the ride.
 
Death Wish Blues is released by Rounder Records on 19 May, and can be ordered here.

Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton - Magazzini Generali, Milan, 2 April 2023

To use the old oxymoronic cliché, this show by Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton was a bit of a curate’s egg – good in parts.  This is a very odd thing for me to say about a show involving Sam Fish, but I have my reasons.
For one thing, there’s the matter of unfamiliar material.  This is partly a matter of timing, as the duo’s album Death Wish Blues, doesn’t come out until May, so a handful of songs in this set are unknown quantities.  And while I know Fish’s back catalogue very well indeed, I can’t say the same about Jesse Dayton, so a couple of his songs are new to me too.

Jesse Dayton and Samantha Fish pick their way through the symbolic murk

None of which would necessarily bother me much, if the sound wasn’t so bad.  From where I’m standing during the first half of this show, a few metres from the stage, the mix is terrible.  The drums seem to swamp everything, rendering the keyboards inaudible most of the time, and even worse making it difficult to hear the vocals with any clarity.  Given that Samantha Fish is generally a singer with seriously good diction, the fact that her words are reduced to a blur here is a major disappointment.  It's bad enough when the subtlety of her well-known cover of ‘Hello Stranger’ is completely overpowered by the clattering drums, but it’s ruinous on a previously unheard song like the soulful ‘No Apology’, where what Fish is singing about is anyone’s guess.
And just as the audio is a problem, so is the visual, because the lighting is unhelpfully hyperactive.  Magazzini Generali is a venue given over more to club nights than gigs, and it seems the in-house lighting guy isn’t too fussed about adjusting the light show for the latter.   So we’re subjected to a whirling display, and an occasional fug of smoke, that generally do more to obscure the band than illuminate them.
All the same, there’s entertainment to be had in the course of the night.  The rock’n’roll intent is clear when they open with ‘Brand New Cadillac’, and they give Junior Parker’s ‘Feel So Good’ a decent thrashing, while there’s also a grinding purpose to the “get no more than you deserve” counsel of ‘Settle For Less’.  Fish straps on her cigar box to knock out the reliably punchy ‘Bulletproof’, but for me a better choice in this show would be for them to drag the gutsy, tub-thumping duet of ‘Go To Hell’ out from the depths of her closet. 
Dayton’s brief and strutting ‘Hurtin’ Behind The Pine Curtain’ has a satisfyingly heavy, heavy monster sound, and there’s a funkier feel to new song ‘Trauma’, with its Zeppelin-like bridge.  But it’s the acoustic double-header of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ and

It's a hard dollar, but they just can't let it go.

Dayton’s ‘Baby’s Long Gone’ that really starts to turn the set around, allowing the duo to show their subtlety, as the band take a break and there’s respite from the overweight mix.  The former tune features a neatly Hispanic solo from JD, while the latter is a coruscating acoustic blues on which Fish delivers a lovely solo of her own.
It also helps that shortly afterwards I retreat to stand by the sound desk, where the mix seems – as you’d hope, fer cryin’ out loud - less lop-sided.  And this coincides with them embarking on a run of covers with which familiarity breeds contentment.  ‘Shake Your Hips’ features another characterful Dayton solo, and then they segue into ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’, producing some walloping fun.
They slow things down for ‘I Put A Spell On You’, on which Samantha conjures up a ghostly solo to go with her slinky (and thankfully intelligible) vocal, before bringing it to a head with a howling guitar foray, laying the foundations for a driving, punkish rendition of Love’s ‘Seven And Seven Is’, which they dial back for a tasty display of interlinked guitar work.

The set proper then closes with new single ‘Riders’, on which the keys finally surface to offer some throbbing clavinet as the pair let rip vocally about how the road is in their blood - a "hard dollar" that they just can't let go.  And they encore with new song ‘Know My Heart’, which sounds like it might have legs, but which is outdone by the solidly rocking blues of ‘Going Down South’.
All in all this wasn’t a show on which to judge just how well the talents of Jesse Dayton and Samantha Fish blend, and add up to something extra.  It was a gig in which the pairing fought an unhelpful setting, and won on points.  If I see ‘em again later in the year, I hope it’s in more sympathetic surroundings.

Quickies - Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton, The Commoners, and Selina and the Howlin' Dogs

The latest Quickies round-up brings together three different brands of blues'n'roots under one roof, with some rock'n'roll, some Southern rock, and some British blues-based rock.

 
Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton – The Stardust Sessions
 
Ever the moving target, Samantha Fish recently announced that she was getting together with Texan guitarist and singer Jesse Dayton, an outlaw-country-meets-punk-rock kinda guy,  for a bundle of US dates and an album of originals titled Death Wish Blues, produced by Jon Spencer and due out in the Spring.  And to seal the deal the pair then rush released this 3-track EP on 2 December.
Writing together the duo apparently “envisioned a sound that married the explosive blues with

Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton, not necessarily in that order

Pic by Skyler Smith

alt-rock”.  Well, whatever that may sound like, this collection of three covers is two parts rock’n’roll, and one part Americana.
‘Brand New Cadillac’ was originally released by British rock’n’roller Vince Taylor and His Playboys in 1959, and famously covered by The Clash 20 years later.  Hell’s bells, that was 43 years ago!  Whatever, the SF-JD take is an adrenaline blast, jaggedly banging out the ‘Peter Gunn’-like riff, while Fish and Dayton compete and interact with breathless vocals and some suitably scratchy guitar breaks.  Then they double down with a souped-up version of Magic Sam’s ‘Feelin’ Good’ (aka ‘I Feel So Good (I Wanna Boogie)’).  Dayton leads on the street-talking conversational vocal, getting into some vocal and guitar call and response and trading stinging licks with Fish.  These two tracks are, essentially, a hoot.
‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ is a whole different kettle of potatoes, although counterpointing slam-dunk rock’n’roll and acoustic sensitivity is a formula that will be familiar to Samantha Fish fans.  Indeed this cover of a tender Townes Van Zandt song would have fitted very snugly onto her Belle Of The West album.  Acoustic picking and strumming is the basis for some delicate Fish singing, and low-down country-ish vocals from Dayton, with some mandolin-like trilling guitar providing a minor diversion along the way.   Evidently Fish and Dayton are ready to be romantic as well rambunctious.
 
The Stardust Sessions is out now as a digital-only release, available here.
 
 
The Commoners – Find A Better Way
 
“The Black Crowes are a considerable influence for us,” says Commoners vocalist and guitarist Chris Medhurst.  This, I think, is an understatement.   I mean, I like the Black Crowes, got a few of their albums and everything.  But listening to Find A Better Way I’d infer that the Commoners positively adore the Crowes.

The Commoners try to find a better way out in the country

‘Find A Better Way’ itself sets the scene, kicking off with a big, ringing riff, reinforced by a blast of organ, before Medhurst embarks on an impressively raunchy vocal – a vocal that channels Chris Robinson to a quite bonkers degree.  Gotta say though, it’s a really strong song, with a powerful hook rammed home by the backing vocals, while guitars power along and the guesting Jeff Heisholt adds a gutsy organ solo.  The following ‘Fill My Cup’ starts off with another surging riff over hammering drums from Adam Cannon (yes, really), before chilling out for the first verse, suggesting more light and shade may be in the offing.  And maybe a smidgen more dynamics are evident, but that’s soon overcome by another anthemic chorus, with darn near choral backing vocals, and slide guitar flitting in and out courtesy of Ross Citrullo.
There’s plenty more of this densely arranged sound to follow.  ‘More Than Mistakes’ features a stomping backbeat and Citrullo’s guitar melding with waves of organ, plus a guitar solo that starts with a nod to Hendrix’s ‘Third Stone From The Sun’, while ‘Too Much’ opens with a scudding rollercoaster of a riff, and Medhurst’s vocals get going in a lower, less plaintive pitch.  Even when they start off slow on ‘Naturally’ though, with just acoustic and sparse electric guitar, and a cooler vocal from Medhurst, things end up getting very intense.
‘I Won’t’ leans towards country rock, and brings with it pedal steel courtesy of fellow Canadian Michael Eckert that really isn’t my bag.  This isn’t Eckert’s fault, it's purely a matter of personal taste.  ‘Hangin’ On Again’ reaches for the epic, starting slowish with serpentine slide guitar and more restrained vocals over soulful organ from Miles Evan Branagh, and features tasteful slide guitar wrapping itself around the vocal.  Inevitably Medhurst ends up getting all worked up, and Citrullo breaks out a very Southern slide solo, but there’s more subtlety at work here than elsewhere.
There will be Southern rock fans who love Find A Better Way from first to last, and good luck to 'em.  But while I enjoyed particular songs, I could do with The Commoners being a bit less relentless over the span of an album, and a bit less in thrall to their inspirations too.
 
Find A Better Way is out now on Gypsy Soul Records. 
 
 
Selina and the Howlin’ Dogs – Blues Revisited
 
I love it when a plan comes together, and on songs like ‘On The Line’ and ‘I Still Want More’ Reading-based Selina and the Howlin’ Dogs join the dots to show what they can do.
‘On The Line’ kicks off with a catchy combination of chiming guitar work and bubbling bass, over a rolling, offbeat rhythm, engaging the butt as well as the ear, while singer Selina Arch is supported by some handy backing vocals on a satisfying melody.  The Dogs have aspirations to

Selina and the Howlin' Dogs go for the gritty urban look

add hip-hop to the mix at times too, and here the rap element delivered by bassist Mark Peace fits into the skipping rhythm nicely.  The closing ‘I Still Want More’ kicks off with brisk stop-time guitar chords over a fast clip rhythm, setting up an appealing power-pop vibe.  It’s the basis for Arch to rattle out a simple verse, and a chorus that comes with a useful hook attached, while guitarist Alan Burgin knocks out a tasty solo worthy of a Pretenders hit.
Other good moments include ‘The Way Things Are’, with its fuzzy, low slung, if somewhat familiar sounding rock riff.  It has another likeable chorus, and Burgin offers up a spiky but all too brief guitar break.  ‘Never Get Over You’ opens up with an urgent, tumbling riff over clattering drums, before cooling off into the semi-funky verse, and Burgin produces a nicely melodic guitar solo over the swinging rhythm section of Peace and drummer Tobias Andersson, who clearly have some jazz chops between them.  
There are plenty of interesting things to catch the ear over the course of 13 tracks.  ‘Please Me Now’ comes with an edgy if under-powered guitar riff, and Arch injects personality into the Blondie-like chorus, but it could do with something punchier than Burgin’s rather sedate, jazzy solo.  And ‘Get Up’ suggests some tasteful soul-jazz capability, with Peace and Andersson syncopating nicely in the run-up to a rippling Burgin solo, and Arch making with the required slinkiness.
Things could be better in several respects though.  The mix feels thin, making the band sound tame and leaving Arch’s somewhat reedy voice unhelpfully exposed until the moments when double-tracking produces more depth.  Stylistically meanwhile, they’re scattergun; blues fused with elements of rock, funk and hip-hop may be their aim, and they do all of that with varying degrees of success, but from a songwriting perspective they pack the most punch when they’re in power pop territory.
There’s a bundle of musical talent circulating within Selena and the Howlin’ Dogs.  But they need more focus, and some sympathetic production, to give that talent direction and make it count.
 
Blues Revisited is out now, and can be ordered here.

Samantha Fish, Wille & The Bandits - Wylam Brewery, Newcastle, 25 September 2022

Bonus marks to Samantha Fish for wearing a black and white outfit in Newcastle, the home of the Magpies.  Though she really didn’t need any special pleading to get the attention of this audience.
Tonight’s set is front loaded with newer material, ‘Bulletproof’ up first, followed by five straight songs from Faster.  ‘Bulletproof’ is a slam-dunk rocker to open, but it also feels looser, more relaxed, than on previous encounters, as Fish plays around with her phrasing.  There’s not much messing about on the stuff that follows though.  Both the funk groove of ‘All Ice No Whiskey’ and

Samantha Fish feels the burn!

the muscular ‘Faster’, with Sarah Tomek's walloping snare beat, are kept short and to the point. In between, the contemporary bump’n’grind of ‘Twisted Ambition’ is given extra spice by Fish verily wringing that neck on a wild solo.  During ‘Like A Classic’ her voice sounds a little lighter than usual, and I’m wondering if she might be feeling a slight tickle in her throat, but if so she sure as hell gets over it by the end of the spiky power pop that’s ‘Better Be Lonely', when she unleashes some steepling, swirling high notes.
Maybe her voice is utterly tour-hardened – I don’t see her take a single sip of water during the whole set – but later on even she finds it a challenge to make the falsetto chorus of ‘So Called Lover’ cut through the full force gale they apply to its Blondie-like punk-pop.  It doesn’t stop her enjoying herself though, as she almost bursts into laughter mid-line at one point, probably having glimpsed the novelty flashing shades of superfan ‘Boogie Ignitor’*, standing right in front of her.
The first older song to get an airing is ‘Gone For Good’, a teasing intro giving way to a hip-wiggling run through with plenty room for Samantha’s slippin’an’slitherin’ slide playing, as well as a rattling piano solo from Matt Wade en route to a rip-roaring conclusion.  Then, introducing ‘Don’t Say You Love Me’, Fish jokes about the “churchy” ambience of this domed venue, suggesting it has a certain “resonance-esonance-esonance”.  It’s not exactly a throwaway line, as after the song’s low key intro it builds and builds in dramatic fashion, until she unveils her latest trick, by heaping reverb onto her vocal for a crowning moment, before they add a slinky ending.  Evidently it’s an effect Samantha likes, because she also lets it loose on Nina Simone’s ‘Either Way I Lose’, amplifying the song’s agonised emotion.  A spell of sotto voce guitar turns

Shades of deep purple

steely, then cools off again before she delivers a dentist-drilling solo to round the song off.
Along the way Sam teases the crowd at the start of ‘Bitch On The Run’, asking them to get their hands in the air, scolding them for a half-hearted effort, and promising there’ll be payback later.  Then they rip into it, with that riff that must surely give Keith Richards a phantom tingle up his spine wherever he may be, and in no time the crowd explode into enthusiastic clapping along, such that Fish turns to look at bassist Ron Johnson with a beaming “got ‘em” smile, before diving into an eyeballs-out solo.  Matt Wade steps in with an organ break to take things down, then stomps on the power again.  But La Fish isn’t finished teasing, telling the audience that if they think clapping along was payback then they’re wrong, as it’s time for them to take a turn at singing.  Which they do with gusto, of course.
‘Black Wind Howlin’’ provides the crunking, grinding finale, into which Fish inserts a needling, discordant solo before leading the band into an explosive closing segment - so explosive that she breaks a string.
Fish comes out alone and picks up her acoustic for the first encore, again engaging in some repartee with the crowd, telling them coquettishly that “you guys are special” before embarking on ‘Jim Lee Blues Pt.1’, inspiring some more spontaneous clapping to accompany her extensive, playful solo.  Then it’s time to strap on the cigar box again for the stomping raunch of ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’, which concludes with Samantha executing some bottom of the neck wailing fit to

Smiling Bandit Wille Edwards

disturb the local dog population.
Whisper it if you’re in earshot of the Toon Army, but Samantha Fish delivered an even better 90-minute performance than they’d see at St James’ Park.

Cornwall’s Wille & The Bandits are opening on this tour, in the latest line-up led by singer, guitarist and main man Wille Edwards.  Edwards and WATB have been fixtures on the club circuit and at festivals for years, and deserve the extra exposure this tour will provide for their inventive mix of blues-rock with other stylings.
Opener ‘Caught In The Middle’ is a good example, with Edwards delivering rhythmic rapping amid swirling textures and periodic detonations of power.  He’s equally rhythmic on the funky ‘Keep It On The Down-Low’, which he stirs up with a splintering guitar solo, and later a lap steel break that comes over like interstellar radio bleeping.
‘Still Go Marching In’ is soulful pop over a snapping beat, with oohing backing vocals and woozy lap steel, plus a sensitive singalong asking “When will that rainbow come?”    But they pull out the heavy machinery down the stretch, including the big riff of long-time favourite ‘1970’, on which Edwards goes into full-on axe hero mode, before closing with ‘Bad News’ on which a fugue-like middle passage erupts into a wailing finale.
Wille & The Bandits head out on their own headline tour in February and March next year, and will doubtless attract some Fish fans along to catch them delivering a full set.

*Harry 'Boogie Ignitor' Loflin is a retiree from Washington State, who regularly travels to Europe to follow Samantha's tours, wearing goofy attire to gigs in accordance with his admirable maxim, "Life is short, have fun!"

Samantha Fish - Ex-Convento di Santa Chiara, Piacenza, 17 July 2022

On Saturday night Samantha Fish and co were in Haapsalu, Estonia.  On Sunday they’re here in Piacenza, Italy.  Two countries and two very different languages, 1500 miles and probably 10 degrees Celsius apart.  Such is the European blues festival circuit.
Tonight’s gig is among the semi-ruined, scaffolding-propped cloisters of a former Convent, which is in the process of being salvaged as a community space.  You think Delta blues is old school?  

"Now, which knob do I twiddle here again?"

This place is way, way older.  But it swiftly gets jolted into the 21st century when the Fish ensemble take the stage and let rip with a gutsy and rocking rendition of ‘Bulletproof’.
‘All Ice No Whiskey’ continues the latterday slant to the set with its funky dance feel, and I could have enjoyed it going on longer before an organ glissando heralded a crunch into ‘Twisted Ambition’, which Fish elevates – if that’s the word – from the album version by chiselling out some screaming guitar breaks.
The show is evidently sold out, but to a surprisingly small audience, who are all plonked on plastic seats while a bundle of professional snappers patrol the front of the stage with fearsomely large cameras.  So Samantha is being a bit optimistic, I think to myself, when she says she hopes she’ll see people up and dancing before long.
It doesn’t matter for now though, as they roll through ‘Hello Stranger’ in a manner that shows the song is anything but a stranger.  It’s gentle and sparkling, cool and sassy, before being ratcheted up into a crescendo.  A rumbling opening to ‘No Angels’ follow, and if the crowd still aren’t on their feet there are at least pockets of singing along to the “No there ain’t” lines of the chorus.  Sam essays a downbeat slide passage, then breaks loose into a solo that rises to fever pitch, cooled off with a slinky final vocal segment.
‘Better Be Lonely’ is a spiky pleasure, while ‘Kill Or Be Kind’ now seems to make more of the incipient menace in a character who offers her lover the alternatives of the title, having already “put the fear of god in you”.  It segues into a slide passage for which Samantha straps on a peachy looking Les Paul, building towards some big, torn-out chords then escalating frenzy over walloping drums from Sarah Tomek – so much frenzy in fact, that two cymbals take a tumble from the drum riser – all in the service of introducing a fierce take on ‘Watch It Die’.
The band take a break as Fish picks up an acoustic and underlines the blues theme of this ‘Dal

Have Les Paul, will travel!

Mississippi Al Po’ series of summer shows by playing ‘Jim Lee Blues Pt 1’, with some nice picking and a truly bluesy vocal, followed up by a very personal and intimate sounding take on ‘Need You More’.
As the band get back on stage another prompt from Fish finally gets the crowd down the front in time to dance and sing along to ‘Bitch On The Run’, which is followed by the scratchy and infernally catchy ‘So Called Lover’, which could easily be taken for a homage to Blondie, and if the high-flying vocals on the chorus can’t cut through the density of the guitar and rhythm section it doesn’t matter – its infectious, ragged energy is enough to make it work.
The sweet swirl of ‘Dream Girl’ offers some respite for a while, until eventually it soars skywards on Fish’s solo, driven on by Ron Johnson’s propulsive bass.  This is a mere appetiser though, for the wild rollercoaster of ‘Black Wind Howlin’’ with which they close the set.  You need to do something dramatic to pull anyone’s focus from Samantha Fish during a live performance, but Holy Moly, Sarah Tomek does just that on this occasion, with a display of ferocious, jaw-dropping batterismo, as they might call it in these parts.
As she tunes up for the encore, Fish notices a poster for a Sam Fish tribute band dubbed The Runaways, after the title track of her first album.  “You probably know the words better than I do these days,” she observes.  Which is a shame, because like a lot of her early material, it’s better than she seems to think.  Still, it’s good to see that songs from Faster, state-of-the-art twists and all, slot in nicely alongside older stuff to produce a coherent, rocking show.  And just to underline her blues-heavy roots, they bring down the curtain with a substantial, hard-hitting, and dynamic rendition of ‘Shake ‘Em Down’ that draws satisfied cheers from the now dancing audience.
It was a pretty darned hot night in Piacenza.  This show from Samantha Fish and her band added their own cocktail of chills and fever to the atmosphere.  (See what I did there?)
 
You can watch some clips of the Piacenza show here.

Check out Samantha Fish’s upcoming shows in Europe and the United States on her website, here.

Samantha Fish - Faster

Here she comes again, dancin’ ‘neath the starry skies.  Yep, it’s the moving target that is Samantha Fish.
“You know, any time I feel like we’re closing to getting – um, figured out,” Ms Fish said to me when I interviewed her a couple of years ago, “when people think that this is exactly who you are, and this is what you’re gonna be, and it becomes an expectation - it makes me wanna change.”   And listening to Faster, you know she wasn’t kidding.
Let’s start with the album cover, with its vivid picture of Fish lasciviously running her tongue up

Samantha Fish, glossy sheen and all

Pic by Kevin King

the neck of an, er, upright guitar.  What’s that all about?  Well, it’s attention-grabbing for sure – anyone idly catching sight of it is going to do a double take.  But it’s also a world away from the vulnerable fairy tale heroine suggested on the cover of Wild Heart.  I’m thinking it’s a don't-give-a-shit visual statement, declaring that Samantha Fish will do whatever she goddamn pleases, thank you very much.  You know what else?  Intentionally or not, that picture references the artwork on the 1979 single ‘Picture This’ by Blondie, that bunch of New York punks who mutated into chartbusting power-poppers, turning their hands to disco and rap along the way.
Picture this indeed, in readiness for the aural rollercoaster ride of Faster, as Fish and her producer/collaborator Martin Kierszenbaum smash styles together like a rock’n’roll Hadron Collider.  Get ready, people, for crunching rock riffs, scrabbling post-punk guitar breaks, glistening keys, dance grooves, electro-pop bleeping – and more besides.
The title track kicks in with a buzzing, tough riff fit to rank with ‘Show Me’ from Wild Heart, but also introduces a thumping drum sound akin to the gated reverb variety that dominated the 80s.  There’s a tantalising frisson to the yada-yada-yada lyric of the chorus: “I wanna ooh-ooh-ooh, You’re gonna ooh-ooh-ooh, That’s how I’ll make your heart go faster.”  It's one of a number of songs about sexual attraction and - at the risk of sounding interleckshul - the power dynamics of relationships.  A screaming guitar break will hit the bullseye for long-standing Fish fans, but the sonic gloss and sheen is something different – and she’s just getting started.
‘All Ice, No Whiskey’ has plenty of sexy swagger, and buried within it a groove that’s on familiar terms with Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ gets its little socks rocked off.  Discordant keys sweep here and there, and the chorus is burnished by sleek, multi-tracked vocals, but what’s inescapable is a

Not Samantha Fish, not Faster

 dance floor rhythm track that’s enough to get even this old git practising his white man’s overbite (© Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner and Billy Crystal).  And if ‘Twisted Ambition’ has not one but two gritty guitar riffs getting sonically warped, they’re also jostling with throbbing, synthy bass lines, and bright pulsing keys that create tension before Fish lets loose on guitar.
By this time old school blues-rock fans may be feeling seasick as they lurch between loving some of the gutsy guitar, and dropping their jaws at some of the other sounds flying around.  And you ain’t heard anything yet.
‘Hypnotic’ slides seductively into earshot with a gasping vocal about “casting a spell that binds you”, over beeping like electronic raindrops.  It comes over like something from an 80s Brit synth-pop outfit - until Mademoiselle Fish lets rip with a grungy guitar interlude that would give electronica twiddlers heart failure.  On the other hand ‘Forever Together’ takes the “bomp-bomp-ba-bomp-bomp” vocal refrain of Cream’s ‘I Feel Free’ and bends it into the deformed riff for a punky pop song with the perkiest of catchy, where-have-I-heard-that-before choruses.
The opening verse of ‘Crowd Control’ reveals one of Fish’s few weaknesses, a tendency that’s cropped up before to waver a mite on notes at the bottom end of her register.  What follows is a slice of dreamy pop that at first blush seems serviceable rather than outstanding, but as she relaxes into the vocal and adds some neat guitar fills it begins to sound like Samantha on more familiar soulful ground.  ‘Imaginary War’ never really achieves escape velocity though, notwithstanding its fuzzy Morse Code backing and a typically spiky guitar solo.
But if that’s something of a lull in proceedings, ‘Loud’ gets things back on track.  A mellow verse with soulful crooning á la Kill Or Be Kind’s ‘Love Letters’ explodes into a chorus that’s all slamming chords, swelling organ and forceful vocals.  And then – steps back in amazement, supersonic Sam – a fella starts rapping!  Will this be a bridge too far for some guitar rock

"The future is this way!"

aficionados, or will they take the rapid-fire delivery of Tech N9ne in their stride?  Answers on a postcard, please.
And having dropped that stylistic bombshell, ‘Better Be Lonely’ switches tack with a repetitive, scratchy guitar line that’s taken up by Sam’s smoother vocal, over a cool, swinging bass groove and a thumping backbeat.  It’s a simple enough tune, but it’s also an insistent, infernal earworm, topped off with a trademark wiry guitar solo.  Then things get even wilder with the punk-pop guitar wig-out of ‘So-Called Lover’, which is more or less ‘Love Your Lies’ Mark II with a Blondie-esque stratospheric chorus and a buzzsaw guitar solo.
If you’re feeling breathless after all that, ‘Like A Classic’ cools things off, its wordless opening lines sliding into a swoonsome, coo-ing vocal, with a sweetly rising and falling chorus over squiggly background noises.  And then ‘All The Words’ is a classic Fish slowie, easing in with Beatle-ish softly softly guitar notes, then leaning on sparse electric piano below Samantha’s reflective, emotional vocal about how “the caged bird never flies”, ultimately bringing down the curtain with some sweetly soaring singing.
“That’s part of being an artist,” the lady said to me back in 2019.  “You’re going to do things that are either gonna incite happiness, or upset people.”  Some people may be upset by Faster.  Others may catch up with it.  Me?  I’m sold.  Faster isn’t perfect, but it’s radio-ready dynamite in a similar way to the Black Keys’ El Camino.  And Samantha Fish is a determined, ambitious young woman who’s carving out new possibilities for her music, and doing it with flair.
 
Faster is released by Rounder Records on 10 September, and is available for pre-order here.

Samantha Fish - Tipitina's, New Orleans, 1 May 2021

A solo show by Samantha Fish, armed with just a few guitars and her singular voice, ain’t your everyday occurrence.  I wasn’t there in N'Awlins of course.  Chance would be a fine thing.  But I could still see it via the wonders of YouTube – and you can too.
Strapping on her Taylor acoustic, Mam’selle Fish embarks on a no-half-measures performance comprising 21 songs and lasting nearly 2 hours.  It takes her a few songs to really hit top gear and capture the crowd, perhaps, but there’s no doubt she gets there in the end.
Of course, Samantha has recorded numerous acoustic or semi-acoustic numbers over the

Samantha Fish - Taylor in hand, just not in NOLA!

years, that offer up natural cornerstones for this kind of set.  Early on for example, ‘Blood In The Water’ is tense and spooky, with some steely soloing, and delicate vocals towards the end.  And at the other end of the show, the first encore ‘Go Home’ is a perfect fit, so disarmingly simple and with a wonderful lyric.  I’ve seen her stun an audience into silence with it, and it works its magic here too.
‘Blame It On The Moon’ is swinging and relaxed, before getting sturdier as it progresses.  Late in the set her take on ‘Jim Lee Blues’ is sprightly, witty and charming, and goes down a storm, and she follows that up by with an achingly vulnerable and delicate reading of ‘Need You More’.
There are moments of soul with a capital S drawn from Chills And Fever.  The title track is as cheeky as ever, if not more so, even reduced to minimalist ticking guitar.  She does a great job of stripping back Bettye Lavette’s ‘You’ll Never Change’, with an infernally catchy guitar backing for her warm vocal, and ‘Hello Stranger’ is aural comfort food.  Her own songs in this vein add a layer of complexity to the formula though.  ‘Kill Or Be Kind’ is a dark and edgy tune, a bitter-sweet dare to the object of desire, while in its acoustic form ‘She Don’t Live Here Anymore’ combines restraint with rich guitar playing in a boundary-blurring manner.  Is it soul?  Is it Americana?  Does it matter?
She throws a few wild cards into the mix to keep everyone guessing.  Her swaying and rippling cover of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ underlines her Americana interests, but is that a grimace at a fluffed note in the solo?  Rather better, for me, is her version of Gladys Knight’s ‘If I Were Your Woman’, a terrific, impassioned take on a dark love song.  But the best surprise of all is a rare performance of her own ‘Let’s Have Some Fun’.  It’s intimate and sexy, and a reminder that though she doesn’t draw much on Runaway and Black Wind Howlin’ these days, there are still more than a few little gems on those albums.  (And if she’d like to haul ‘Kick Around’ out of the closet for her next British tour, that would do me very nicely, thanks very much!)
But there’s still room in the show for Fish to apply a bit of muscle.  Her SG at the ready, she rouses the audience into a singalong on the loping, insistent ‘No Angels’, on which she sets up a loop with the riff as a foundation for her most rockin’ and rollin’ solo to that point.  The rollicking middle-finger-salute of ‘Gone For Good’ features some helter-skelter slide playing, and on the spiky ‘Black Wind Howlin’’ her jagged, shrapnel-like soloing raises hollers from the crowd.
Her now legendary cigar box guitar is introduced from the wings to whoops of appreciation, unleashing a fuzzed-up, hair-tousling (hers not mine, of course) run through ‘Bulletproof’ – though I remain to be convinced that her use of a dynamic vocal microphone for the chorus adds any real value.  Never mind, the second encore of ‘Runaway’ is a pulsating, rocking, revved-up affair to dispel such details.
Throughout all of this, despite being all on her ownsome for this performance, Samantha is relaxed, funny, and engaging, even happy to ask “You ready for the silliest guitar solo you’ve heard?” in the middle of blasting through the punkish rock’n’roll of ‘Love Your Lies’.  The coronavirus pandemic has been a brutal time for professional musicians, but it’s good to see that Samantha Fish, at least, is still smiling.

You can find Samantha Fish's Tipitina's show on YouTube, here.  (Or search for "Tipitina's Samantha Fish.)  Her performance starts 6:35 into the stream.

The YouTube stream is free, but you can 'tip' Samantha Fish via Paypal.

Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking 2020 - Part 2

Still full of Christmas cheer, people?  Well, here’s Part 2 of the Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking to keep you smiling.
Now, you might think that live music is a curious choice for this piece to focus on, at the end of a year that was almost a total write-off for gigs from around mid-March.  But hey, there were a few live albums this year, from artists old and new, to remind us of the power of live music.
At the very top of the tree is Check Shirt Wizard – Live In ’77, by Rory Gallagher.  Released in March, I said in my review that I’d be dumbfounded if there was a better album this year, and I stand by that statement.  Check Shirt Wizard is a breath-taking document of what Rory brought to the stage back then – a four piece on full throttle, barnstorming, dynamic form, led by a man with a musical mojo of mythic proportions.  If you want to get in the mood, check out this footage of ‘Calling Card’, from a Hammersmith Odeon performance that year.

Another in concert collection from a late Irish legend arrived in January, with Gary Moore’s Live From London.  Recorded in 2009, it’s not without its flaws, but it’s still a testament to how rediscovering the blues back in 1990 brought a much stronger focus to Moore’s work.  Hard core fans will love the guitar pyrotechnics for which he always had a penchant, but for me it’s when he lays back a bit and captures the emotion in songs that he’s at his best, whether it’s the heartache of ‘Still Got The Blues’ or the humour of ‘Too Tired’.  Here he is having some fun with ‘Walking By Myself’, at the 2010  Montreux Jazz Festival.

A more contemporary live recording released this year came from Albert Castiglia, with Wild And Free, recorded in Boca Raton in November 2019.  Now Albert, like Gary Moore, is fond of letting it rip in the guitar stakes, and he certainly does that a few times in the course of this set.  But there’s light and shade in there too – as well as some special guests.  This performance of Johnny Winter’s ‘Too Much Seconal’, filmed in Poland a few weeks before the Boca Raton gig, is a pretty good illustration of the Castiglia style.

But lest anyone think that quality live albums are the sole preserve of guitar slingers, singer Sari Schorr chipped in with a goodie back in February in the form of Live In Europe.  At its best it serves up sassy, rockin’ blues with a dash of funk, decorated by quality guitar from Ash Wilson and keys from (depending on the cut) Bob Fridzema and Stevie Watts, as a platform for Schorr to do her forceful vocal stuff.  Here they are giving it some welly on the brooding 'Damn The Reason', back in 2018.

If there’s someone who really should have released a live album in 2020, to fill the void in touring work, it’s the woman who probably does around 200 gigs in the course of normal year – Samantha Fish.  Let’s face it, she and her management must have piled up some decent recordings of her incendiary live shows by now, and her fanbase have been drooling at the prospect for a good while now.  On the plus side, I did manage to catch a couple of British shows early in the year, including the London gig at Islington Assembly Hall, before she had to pull the plug on her European tour in mid-March.  Here she is in Denver back in February, having fun on ‘Bitch On The Run’, complete with compulsory singalong.

One of the few other bands I managed to catch before live music came to a crashing halt was Wille & The Bandits, in their new four-piece incarnation.  To my mind they're a band who deserve considerably more attention than they currently seem to get, as they manage to extend their blues foundations into prog rock terrain, with world music influences thrown into the mix for good measure.  To demonstrate my point, here they are with 12 minutes' worth of the epic instrumental 'Angel', from a 2020 performance in France.

I can't say I've devoted a lot of time to watching the streaming of live shows, though naturally quite a few artists have gone down this road in an effort to keep the home fires burning.  Sometimes that's just been a matter of timing - shows in the States often hit our screens in the middle of the night here in Europe.  But there's also the missing ingredient to contend with - the magic of simply being there, in the room when the music is being made, and being part of the interaction with the artist.  And with that in mind, let's hope this pandemic beats a retreat before too long, so that we can all get back to enjoying live music for real.

You can find Part 1 of the Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking here.

Dion - Blues With Friends

Dion Dimucci is 80.  Let me say that again.  Dion, of ‘The Wanderer’ fame, is 80 years old.  But you wouldn’t know it, listening to Blues With Friends.  He is never betrayed by the quavering pipes of an old codger, but instead owns the songs with the delivery and phrasing of a guy who has kept his primary instrument in full working order.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this album.  But like Topsy, Blues With Friends has growed and growed on me, and I suspect I’ll be returning to its charms on a regular basis.  The tone is set well by the opening ‘Blues Comin’ On’, which shuffles along in easy-going fashion with Dion communicating the vibe perfectly.  Meanwhile Joe Bonamassa does a sterling job as the first guest start turn, adding subtle moanin’ an’ groanin’ slide guitar that fits the character of the song.  Then the following ‘Kickin’ Child’ is a bright but laid back affair that rolls along effortlessly like something from JJ Cale, with twinkling guitar embroidery from Joe Menza.

Dion Dimucci - the smile that comes with a job well done

Pic by David Godlis

These tracks set the tone for the guest guitar contributions that follow on the bluesy tracks that form the spine of the album.  These range from the restrained but effective sparkle-and-twang Brian Setzer adds to the skipping ‘Uptown Number 7’, to the clear-toned Joe Louis Walker breaks that flit around the tune on the Van Morrison duet ‘I Got Nothin’’, the biting and gnawing Sonny Landreth slide on the swaggering ‘I Got The Cure’, and the hand-in-glove conversation between Dion and Samantha Fish’s wiry, expressive playing on ‘What If I Told You’.  This last, in particular, is a blues tune that offers more than your common-or-garden melody, enhanced by Dimucci’s excellent phrasing.

But the departures from the soulful blues core hit the mark too.  ‘Can’t Start Over Again’ may be adorned with some exquisite guitar filigrees from Jeff Beck, but it’s the song that really catches the ear, a simple slice of Americana that Dion interprets beautifully.  ‘Stumbling Blues’, regardless of its title and reliance on a blues progression, sounds like Great American Songbook fare, as Dion croons his way through the lilting, woozy closing time vibe to the hazy accompaniment of Jerry Vivino’s sax.  ‘Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America)’ is an acoustic-led singer-songwriter style duet with Paul Simon on which their voices combine delightfully, complemented by graceful violin breaks from a party I’m not able to credit right now.  And ‘Told You Once In August’ is an absorbing, stripped down folk blues on which John Hammond and Rory Block interweave chiming and moaning acoustic slide over a simple beat, and Block adds some minimalist but spot-on backing vocals.

Not everything is perfect.  ‘Bam Bang Boom’, on which Billy Gibbons guests, feels like it needs a kick in the ass in order to get going, though the groove does generate some toe-tapping in the end.  And the Christian folk leanings of ‘Hymn To Him’ leave me cold, regardless of its pretty tune and the involvement of Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen.

But hey, the strike rate of the material on Blues With Friends is mightily impressive.  Producer Wayne Hood deserves credit too, for the simple, uncluttered sound of the album, and for drawing all those guest contributions into a coherent whole.  The end result is the kind of relaxed but polished affair that’s perfect for kicking back with a beer and chilling out.

I think Bob Dylan puts it best though.  He doesn’t appear on the album, but he does contribute to the liner notes.  "Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs,” says Bob.  “He’s got some friends here to help him out, some true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share these Blues songs with him."  Yeah, what he said.

Blues With Friends is released by KTBA Records on 5 June, and is available for pre-order at KTBArecords.com.

Samantha Fish - Islington Assembly Hall, London, 5 March 2020

The lights dim, the strains of ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ on the entry tape swell, and drummer Scotty Graves scoots across the stage and round to his drum stool, arms spread wide like an aeroplane.  

That capering entrance just about sums up the fun this band are having, and transmit to the audience.  But if it’s a carefree performance, it sure as hell ain’t a careless one, because this show is a switchback ride mashing up blues, rock’n’roll, soul and country, and they need to keep their eyes on the road, their hands on the musical wheel.

Samantha Fish feels the soul

Samantha Fish makes her entrance and after a brooding slide intro they blast into a cigar box flaying ‘Bulletproof’.  About an hour and three-quarters later she’s got the cigar box in her hands again, for a pounding, body-slamming rendition of ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’.  And in between they flex their blues and rock muscles on the likes of a walloping run-through of ‘Watch It Die’, which they dial down into a quiet “I won’t fade away” passage, before Fish lets rip with a screaming solo.  Then there’s their take on ‘You Got It Bad’, completely eclipsing the recorded version, with a crunching middle eight and Samantha making like a Siren of the guitar on the ending.  And they really “blues it up”, in Fish’s words, on ‘No Angels’.  It’s ticking opening builds suspense before it gains momentum, rising and falling through a raunchy keyboard solo from Phil Breen and slide solo from Samantha on which they crank up the pace before dipping again into the final verse.

On the soulful front there’s no arguing with ‘She Don’t Live Here Anymore’, which shows how much Fish learned from the making of Chills And Fever. There’s attention to detail in the little cymbal sting Graves provides just as Fish drops her hip on a particular beat, but it’s just that - a detail - compared to her shivering slide solo and the delicate keys and organ solo provided by Phil Breen.  Being honest, I could live without the bitter-sweet ‘Love Letters’, good as it is, if it created room for another swig of rock’n’roll on a gallop through ‘Love Your Lies’.  But late in the set ‘Fair-weather’ is just spellbinding, even if I’m not convinced by Fish throwing away a few lines by dropping into spoken words at the end of them.  It’s got a sublime key change though, and Fish produces a trademark bravura vocal to close, while simultaneously re-tuning her goddamned guitar.  Don’t that just make you sick?

Along the way they also down-shift into the sweetly cool country-ish ‘Say Goodbye’, with keyboard player Nick David taking the lead vocal and Samantha dropping in a rippling acoustic solo, and later, for the first encore, they repeat the trick with a duet on the gorgeous ‘Need You More’ from Belle Of The West, with its pseudo-Hispanic, moonlit acoustic solo.

Yes, they are ready to rock'n'roll a little bit!

Mid-set, Fish asks “Y’all ready to rock’n’roll a little bit?”  This cues up the rattling ‘Little Baby’, on which Chris Alexander gives it plenty on bass while his boss delivers an eyeballs-out solo, en route to her duel with a drumstick-throwing Scotty Graves and a gut-wrenching denouement.  Then, with barely a pause for breath they’re sliding into the acid trip phantasmagoria of ‘Dream Girl’, with Graves taking a brush to his snare drum as the undertow to woozy slide guitar and aching vocals, melding into off-kilter synth effects and a spacey, echo-laden guitar solo.

They close the main set with ‘Bitch On The Run’, and for all it’s a song with a Stonesy undercurrent, the Strolling Bones would need steroids, Viagra, and who knows what else chemical enhancement to rock like this nowadays.  Nick David and Phil Breen take turns parading their keyboard chops, Chris Alexander thrums his bass like a junior Geddy Lee, and Scotty Graves throws a towel over his head for a snappy drum solo that swings enough to have Fish giving a smiling wiggle or two stage left.  Then she heads back to the mic to conduct the inevitable singalong as a precursor to a rocking, neck-snapping finale.

At some point in the middle of this multi-faceted set, some drunk guy shouts “Play some

Fèlix Rabin gets personal

fucking blues!”  Mate, if you were looking for wall-to-wall 12–bar blues wailing, you came to the wrong gig.  Samantha Fish puts on a stylistic rollercoaster ride of a rock'n’roll show.  And to paraphrase Mott The Hoople, she’s a rock’n’roll queen, know what I mean?

After all that, one could be forgiven for neglecting the support slot contribution to the evening of French singer-guitarist Fèlix Rabin.  He kicks off with some effects-driven Hendrixness that isn’t apparent on his newly-released Pogboy EP, and continues in a choppy-funky vein with a warped wah-wah solo on ‘Say (You Won’t Leave Me)’.  But ‘Moving On’ introduces a more personal, melodic sound, showing off some exquisitely clear tone.

He reverts to Hendrix-mode with a ten-minute cover of ‘Voodoo Chile’, on which he proceeds to break a string but adapts well to let rip convincingly before a machine gun riffing ending.  And there’s still room for inventive choral effects on the big descending riff of ‘Walk’ with its anthemic chorus.  Fèlix Rabin may still be a fresh-faced 24-year old, but his potential is obvious.

The set list for the show is available at setlist.fm here.
You can find a review of the 28 February show in Glasgow here.