Live at Project House, Leeds 10th October 2024
Fronting a classy band, Samantha Fish cuts quite a figure, inspiring someone from the audience to ask her to marry him. The cheeky, loud and dirty rock stomp of England’s The Zac Schulze Gang has set the scene and warmed the atmosphere. After an opening salvo of straightforward songs, Samantha has stepped up the action and fired up the audience – especially when she tells them that her great-great-great-great grandma came from Barnsley and she is, therefore, a Yorkshire lass. That’s when she turns up the temperature with a beaty ‘Chills And Fever’ with groovy, dancing keys.
Following that with a favourite, ‘Bulletproof’, keeps it going, however ‘Miles To Go’ wakes up the blues spirit as her chunk-chunk-chunk fuzzed up cigar box guitar spits out dirty blues. She’s got a lot of guitars and they bring out different styles – this is my favourite. ‘Kill Or Be Kind’ sees her savouring the beauty of playing slide. With ‘Watch It Die’, it sees moody organ sounds and some vocal jams as she breaks things up. The drummer shifts from head-shaking mode and we have a heartfelt bluesy number, stretched out and full of emotion. Wiggling in shiny black with her blonde pout and attitude, eyes are on her as much as ears on the music. It’s a two-punch music combo too, strong, soulful blues vocals and snarly guitar, roaming between feeling and hammering pentatonic improvisation.
‘Never Gonna Cry’ feels a misfit, almost a show tune, but she follows with the funky groove of a Ted Taylor soul song next (she knows her stuff!) and then the rolling boogie of R.L.Burnside’s Delta Blues; ‘Poor Black Mattie’. A dancing bass player is always a good sign.
‘Dreamgirl’ isn’t the most gripping ballad but turning it up half-way through shows how her guitar can gild even the most tarnished vessel and the long solo is full of feeling. ‘Black Wind Howling’ is home to another long bluesy solo and she has the audience gripped. Gripped enough to demand a two-song encore, including current fave, ‘I Put A Spell On You’.
“What’s that roaring sound” she asks, “You were so shy earlier”. Despite the cold venue and barn-like space, the emotional impact of Fish’s blues brought the crowd with her and shook them up.
