Product Description
SAMANTHA FISH - PAPER DOLL
COMING APRIL 25, 2025, RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY!
SAMANTHA FISH
Paper Doll
Rounder
If there was any doubt that blues rocker Samantha Fish was ready for crossover acceptance it was squashed when Death Wish Blues, her rollicking 2023 collaborative effort with fellow roots lifer Jesse Dayton, was nominated for a Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy. Their joint tour supporting it was a vibrant, sweaty meeting of the minds that smoked every stage.
This follow-up, without Dayton who released his own terrific set this year, is even better. Fish combines her love and expertise combining blues, rock, R&B, garage pop, and swamp music for a nine-track expansion of what she is a master at. Recorded on the road, with her touring band for the first time, Fish and Detroit producer Bobby Harlow (who have already joined on 2017s Chills & Fever), again connect to harness Fish’s exuberant, and often intense, stage energy in the studio.
“I know I’m changing, changing, changing/Watch me go” she sings on the opening “I’m Done Runnin’,” a capsule of the singer/songwriter/guitarist’s career approach. The underlying deep Delta vibe keeps the song dangerous and edgy as she lashes out at an ex-lover who has done her wrong. It’s followed by the self-descriptive “Can Ya Handle The Heat?,” another burner that mirrors her personality and throbbing musical attack. Fish pushes her voice into the red, adding a searing solo as an exclamation mark.
She grinds out the title cut with a scorching riff atop a thumping lick ready-made for a typical North Mississippi Allstars album. In advance promotional notes, she references R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough as influences writing “I love how in a lot of Mississippi Hill Country blues there’s a drone that happens on the low notes and keeps you hypnotized…”. While no one would mistake this as music from one of those aforementioned Delta icons, Fish grabs aspects of their playing, pushing into a more pop/rock attack.
Certainly the ominous, crawling king snake opening groove of “Fortune Teller” takes cues from that style as she talk/sings her verses over a tense, slithering, rhythmic undertow not far from John Lee Hooker territory, before suddenly exploding into a swirling twister of slashing guitars and guttural vocals at the song’s halfway mark. It’s a certain concert highlight. The defiant “Rusty Razor,” a duet with Detroit singer Mick Collins (taking the Dayton roles) rides a repeated grizzled ZZ Top guitar hook with punk ambitions.
The mood lightens for ballad “Off In The Blue” displaying Fish’s smoother side and showing she’s just as effective vocally when the amps are dropped down a few notches. Drums bubble with a restrained rumble allowing her to sing sweet and salty before slinking into a noir, surfy, reverbed solo.
Those aware of Fish’s aggressive tour schedule, which eats up most of the year, probably wonder when she had time to write (mostly co-pen) these tunes, let alone record them and lay down guitar overdubs. But nothing seems rushed or tossed off. On the contrary, these are some of her finest performances. Producer Harlow has captured that tricky netherworld between recording craft and live energy, combing the most potent aspects of both for another highlight in Samantha Fish’s already impressive catalog.
– Hal Horowitz