Samantha Fish has risen to the upper echelons of the contemporary blues world. Aside from clinching the top spot on the Billboard Blues Albums chart in 2023 for Death Wish Blues, 2024 found her opening for the Rolling Stones and joining Slash's blues menagerie, the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival.
Her non-stop touring schedule has also led her to rub shoulders with a gamut of blues players – so who, in her opinion, are some of the best around right now?
“I just got off the road with [Christone] Kingfish [Ingram], and he’s pretty amazing,” she notes in a new interview with Guitar World.
“I think Derek Trucks is one of the greatest there is, not just in blues playing but any playing. He’s an alien. I like Gary Clark Jr. – he’s very tasteful, and he’s got a great tone. Eric Gales is incredible. He just blows everybody away. Luther Dickinson is one of my favorite contemporaries, too. He's awesome.”
As for her response to being ranked the 38th greatest blues player by Total Guitar, Fish says that it's “crazy and a big honor.
“I feel like being a guitar player is all about self-expression,” she enthuses, “so when you’re ranking guitar players, it’s tough for me, because I don’t think there’s one better way to do it.
“There are obviously people who are technically light years down the road from me, but I think when it comes to self-expression, it’s hard to rank them. I’m just trying to do what I can and what I know and get better at what I do.”
Speaking of keeping the blues alive, living legend Buddy Guy recently said that he's not retiring until the blues gets a higher profile – which is why his recent cameo in the Michael B. Jordan blockbuster Sinners was so pivotal.
For more from Samantha Fish, plus new interviews with Chris Buck, Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, and many more, pick up issue 597 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.
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