By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Samantha Fish remembers her show at last year’s Black Swamp Arts Festival fondly. “That was a lot of fun,” she said. “It was a highlight.”
Pretty good considering her set as the festival closer on the Main Stage got pushed inside Howard’s Club H. Then she experienced serious gear problems. “All my techie stuff was like malfunctioning. … I was panicking a little bit.”
Still the rising blues star persisted. Shorn of some of the electronic niceties she fell back on “old school rock ’n’ roll blues stuff with no frills.”
Fish said “that’s kind of how the day felt.”
She admired the grit of the festival organizers. “I always admire a festival that pushes through.”
Her fans will get another chance to see her on the festival Main Stage as a Friday headliner on Sept. 6 when she’ll play at 8 p.m.
The 27th Black Swamp Arts Festival will be held Sept. 6-8 in downtown Bowling Green, with music all three days, and the art show, teen events, and kids activities on Saturday and Sunday.
“I’ve just been running, running, running, since last I saw you,” Fish said in a recent telephone interview.
That included her first time performing in Australia.
Fish also spent a good chunk of time in Royal Studios in Memphis recording “Kill or Be Kind.” The Rounder release will be out on Sept. 20.
Fish said though she doesn’t start playing the material from an album live until it has hit the street, she will be performing the two singles from the album, “Watch It Die” and “Love Letters.” She has a few more new tunes up her sleeves as well. “It won’t be the same show they got last year.”
Producing new recordings is key to the evolution of her sound. They reflect the changes she’s undergone both professionally and emotionally.
“For me making a record is really fresh thing,” Fish said. “Then you take it out on the road and you start performing it and it starts evolving on its own, Before you know it the record has warped into a new style and sound for the band.
“I feel the next record after that is all those experiences crammed in and just little experimental, creative pushing out a little further, and there you have your next sound.”
The live shows are the testing ground of the new material. “On stage in front of different people, the band has a little bit of room to feel it out and find this pocket,” Fish said. “Part of my job as a live performer is to read the audience and figure out what’s entertaining, what makes them happy. What’s great on a studio record might not translate live. You find ways to make the show better.”
She’s been honing her craft for more than a decade since she was a teenager just flexing her wings at jam sessions in her native Kansas City, Missouri.
Her live stage performances and recordings have earned her a slew of awards and faithful fans.
Those are the same listeners who so eagerly awaited her Black Swamp show last year, and now will get to see her in prime time on the Main Stage.
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(Throughout the summer, BG Independent News will be posting previews of the upcoming Black Swamp Arts Festival.)
