Rock Music News: Samantha Fish announces Love Letters tour (2024)

Samantha Fish is pleased to announce the upcoming Love Letters tour – a cross-country solo run inspired by the introspective Love Letters Documentary, first broadcast on PBS in May. The tour kicks off on September 12th in Solana Beach and will find Samantha performing songs from her entire catalog. Tapped by Eric Clapton himself, Fish will be a featured performer on Clapton’s Crossroads tour in Los Angeles on September 23 & 24. “I am so honored to have been invited to participate in his tour; the talent is astounding and awe-inspiring,” declared Fish. Not one to be pigeonholed as a female guitarist, Samantha’s guitarwork has gotten her recognized as one of the most outstanding guitarists in the world, and rightfully so.

As an award-winning artist, singer/songwriter/guitarist Samantha Fish has brought extraordinary power to her self-expression, capturing her inner world in combustible riffs, visceral rhythms, and spine-tingling vocal work. Samantha’s latest effort, Death Wish Blues, is a collaboration with Outlaw Country badass Jesse Dayton. The album has been #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart for three consecutive weeks. The album, written by Samantha and Jesse, showcases the pair’s apparent chemistry and gritty vitality. The duo have been touring domestically and abroad since December 2022 and will be supporting the Steve Miller Band on a string of dates this Fall following the Love Letters tour.

Before Death Wish Blues, Samantha joined forces with producer Martin Kierszenbaum (Lady Gaga, Sting) for 2021’s Faster L.P. The pair uncovered new possibilities in Samantha’s captivating sound, revealing her affinity for North Mississippi blues heroes like R.L. Burnside and wildly inventive iconoclasts like Prince. The album’s embodied unbridled energy is true to its emotional core. “The whole record has a theme of taking charge and taking the reins in a relationship or life in general,” says Fish. “I thought that after 2020 I’d end up with a dismal, bleak album, but instead, we came up with something fun and sexy, and empowering.” Faster followed her 2019 Rounder Records debut, Kill or Be Kind, produced by Grammy winner Scott Billington.

Known first and foremost for her fretwork, Fish’s secret weapon is her astute and nuanced storytelling and ultra-vivid detail from carefully honing her craft. “Because I tour so much, most of my albums have been written in hotels between shows,” she says. “This was the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to just sit in one place and pour everything that was happening around me into songs.” Growing up in Missouri, Fish first found her love of songwriting in her late teens, mining inspiration from Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. She took up the guitar at age 15 and began seeking gigs by cold-calling countless local bars. “I used to open the phone book and call up every place in Kansas City, even if they didn’t have live shows,” she remembers. “I had maybe a three percent success rate, but eventually, I started filling up my calendar—if you put on a good enough show, word of mouth gets around.” Over the years, Fish has maintained her reputation as a phenomenal live act and repeatedly turned out critically acclaimed albums, earning an ever-growing number of accolades.

For Fish, one of the greatest joys of making music is the robust exchange of energy at her incendiary live shows. “I fell in love with music from going to shows, and I know how cathartic it can be. It heals your heart,” she says. “Anytime I play live, I just want to make people forget about everything else in the world and feel that same joy that I feel on stage.” And in the studio, Fish experiences a similar exhilaration—a sustained head rush that’s entirely palpable in every track she records. “There’s such a transformation that can happen in the studio when you own that freedom to be creative,” she says. “I feel so charged up in those moments like I can be whoever I want to be. It’s just me and these incredible musicians trying to make a piece of art that speaks for itself and contributes something new to the world. It’s never hard to feel inspired or empowered when that’s the mission.”

TOUR DATES WITH ERIC JOHANSON SUPPORTING

Sept 12—-Solana Beach, CA————–Belly UpSept 13—-San Juan Capistrano, CA—-Coach HouseSept 14—-Los Angeles, CA—————-Teragram BallroomSept 15—-Bakersfield,CA——————-World RecordsSept 16—-Santa Cruz, CA——————Santa Cruz Mountain Sol FestivalSept 17—-San Francisco, CA————–IndependentSept 20—-Sacramento, CA—————–CrestSept 21—-Paso Robles, CA—————–BarrelHouse BrewingSept 23—-Los Angeles, CA—————–Crypto Arena—-Eric Clapton’s Crossroads FestivalSept 24—-Los Angeles, CA—————–Crypto Arena—-Eric Capton’s Crossroads FestivalSept 26—-Phoenix, AZ———————–Celebrity TheatreSept 28—-Salt Lake City, UT—————-CommonwealthOct 4——-Minneapolis, MN——————Fine LineOct 8——-Chicago, IL————————-Park West