by Tom O’Connor
Welcome to the audience build-out phase of guitarist/singer Samantha Fish’s already strong young music career. Her new release, “Chills & Fever,” released by Ruf Records on March 17, 2017 is a collection of cover songs that should give new and returning fans a clear look at her wide-ranging blues, soul and R&B influences. For the most part it works.
It can be tough for a young blues musician to be taken seriously. Authenticity in the genre is often measured by the years, possibly decades, of real world suffering the musician has endured in the name of their art. A young, fresh-faced player like Fish has to rise above that skepticism even when armed with a well-earned, “Best New Artist” Blues Music Award for her blistering 2012 album, “Runaway.” The lady can play the hell out of guitar, as scores of YouTube clips from her live shows will attest, and it definitely comes out to play on a few tracks here, but this album isn’t really about that. It is about showcasing her ever-improving voice and her evolving feel for the material that put her on the blues path to begin with.
Fish opens this collection with, “He Did It,” originally by The Detroit Cobras who, no coincidence, also form part of her backing band on this album. A twisty little guitar blast launches the song, and the album, just before the horn section comes in to remind you that this experience will be as much about Motown as Memphis. Much has been made of her trekking to Detroit to record this album and the hiring of the DC’s – their legit tough/gritty semi-punk vibe is supposed to lend authenticity to an artist who is too often judged on her youth and attractiveness instead of on the quality of her music.
Like the opening sentence of a novel, the opening song of any album should always be a tone-setter and attention grabber, and this track tells us that, in spite of all its streetwise Detroit bonafides, this project is going to be, from start to finish, a clean, compressed and polished attempt to reach an audience beyond the blues festival circuit, and why not?
The title track “Chills & Fever” follows next. A mid-tempo shuffle with a persistent deep sax squawk that reminds this old Bostonian of some long-lost track from the band, Morphine. Here her youth is an advantage. In Mark Sandman’s hands, these vocals would have dripped with perhaps too much regret and longing, but we hear the desire and hope of someone who hasn’t been burned, too badly, by love and obsession… yet. Her vocals seduce and lament seduction at the same time, floating over the band’s noir-ish, relentless mid-tempo grind of late night determination, bordering on desperation. We’ve all been there.
More Morphine-flavored sax-driven sadness can be found on “Either Way I Lose” and again, Samantha’s vocals make a new and stronger impression than ever before. Deeply felt, bordering on Winehouse-esque, and confident in ways rarely heard on her earlier albums, her vocal swoon and sway meshes with her subtle guitar break in a way that feels mature, sincere and earned. This is a direction she would be smart to dig deeper on. A blues belter who can also croon and seduce like Nina Simone? Hello career longevity.
Albums should close strong, like novels too, with a few final punches that reinforce what you’ve just read or heard. Twelve tracks in to the 14-track collection, Fish and the band roar with her take on the Piedmont blues classic, “Crow Jane.” Her guitar finally unleashed and standing toe-to-toe with the horn section, this is a take-no-prisoners version of a take-no-prisoners song and would be a standout on any of her previous albums.
The same can’t quite be said of the collection’s final track, “I’ll Come Running Over” which, unfortunately, sounds like an only slightly altered melody over rhythm tracks directly lifted from Solomon Burke’s, “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love.” It is really the closest this album comes to a misstep and it is too bad that it is the closer.
In spite of her already impressive album output, Fish is just starting out on the long path of the blues. Don’t be too distracted by the leopard print pants and cherry red lipstick (and admit it, you’d wear leopard print pants and cherry red lipstick if you thought you could pull it off.) A good player and singer who is only going to get better with time; her blues deepening with every victory, loss, triumph and regret on the long road ahead.
I know I’ll be listening.
Anyone who can get themselves out there with a well recorded record gets my vote. Just getting a good album made these days is a monumental task of getting the material, players, right studio, producer and LARGE sums of MONEY to pay for it all, not to mention having the talent and drive to even start a project like that is a monumental task.
It is really HARD to make a competively creative and commercially viable record beginning to end.
Anyone who has done it KNOWS what the MANY concessions and decisions are that get made right down to the artwork. So BRAVO to anyone who can get it out there and still be an artist making a STATEMENT of who and what they started out to be. Congratulations!
I’ve recently discovered Samantha Fish, and was seriously thinking about picking this up, but if as Tom states at the beginning of his review, that this is the start of the “audience build up phase” of her career, then I may opt to go with one or two of her earlier albums first. Her YouTube videos are gritty, loose and fun, from the gut blues rock, which I love.
The Chills & Fever video included in the review is really good, but it comes across more Rockabilly Punk , than Blues. All well and good, and very reminiscent of Imelda May.
I concur with Martine’s assessment. This music is excellent. Very strong throughout the entire disc. Having listened to the album for the first time just now, my thoughts were she’s definitely working to broaden her audience. So I searched the web to find someone who might write the same, and here I am. Anyhoo, she’s done it with flying colors. Vocals are sweet and sassy! Major kudos to Samantha Fish! She’s happily keeping the journey interesting and fun.
It’s Certainly fun and interesting I love it love it all thank you a gift
Tony, You’re so welcome. Glad you like it.