Talking guitar and the blues with Samantha Fish before her return to Lincoln Saturday (2025)

Samantha Fish played Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2023, just got off the road with Slash’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour and, in September, she’ll be part of the Experience Hendrix tour.

Those prestigious gigs all showcase some of the world’s best guitarists, most of them male.

“I definitely feel like there has been a severe lack of representation for women in the industry, and especially in the guitar player world,” Fish said. “But there's actually more and more all the time. I mean, there's some incredible women out there, instrumentalists doing it.

“But as far as earning a spot (as one of the world’s best), you know, I have a thing that I do, and I feel like I have a voice on my instrument. The thing about guitar, it’s about having a voice. There’s so many amazing players out there. To stand out and be unique, you have to connect with what makes you you. I’m trying to do that. That’s my main focus on guitar and I feel like that’s probably why I’m getting some recognition.”

Fish began finding that voice as a teenager, growing up in a musical household in Kansas City, where she started on the drums in an effort to differentiate herself from a family of guitar players.

"Naturally, there were just guitars kind of laying around the house. My dad played, my sister was playing, all my uncles were guitar players, all my dad's friends were guitar players. So I picked it up… I just felt really connected to guitar. And it was like, ‘Damn it, this is my instrument.'”

Hearing records by Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Ray Vaughan, along with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and, especially the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers,” the budding guitarist was drawn to the blues which has become her stock-in-trade.

“I liked rock and roll and I was always kind of inquisitive about, like, who does Keith Richards like to listen to?,” she said. “That was blues. So I started kind of going backwards and picking up different records, I just started collecting different CDs of different eclectic blues people, you know, blues musicians.

She said being from Kansas City, which has a long history of jazz and blues traditions, also spurred her. "There's just really deep roots, and again, lots of opportunities to go out and play, But it's a lot of blues jams. So if I wanted to get up and play with these different people, I sort of had to learn something within the form.”

Fish has been coming to Lincoln since about 2009, when the Samantha Fish Band released its debut record and started branching out of Kansas City to regional roots music venues, like the Zoo Bar.

“I was making the rounds around that time,” she said. “My first band that I put together, I was like 20, 21. I came up there, and I remember playing at the Zoo Bar when I had X's on my hands, which means you can't drink.”

It, however, has been six years since Fish has played Lincoln. During that time she’s taken best blues guitarist honors from the Blues Music Awards and Living Blues awards, released a pair of solo albums and joined Texas singer/guitarist Jesse Dayton on last year’s Grammy-nominated “Death Wish Blues” and a 16-month international tour that wrapped up just in time for her to go out with Slash.

She’ll be at the Bourbon Theater Saturday for a show that, since she doesn’t have a new album, will be made up of some of her favorites from her 10 solo recordings and a few songs from “Death Wish Blues” that can be performed without Dayton.

One thing those who have seen Fish at the Zoo are sure to notice is her vocals, which have, over the last handful of years, gotten stronger and more expressive.

“I'll be honest with you, I've worked my ass off on my voice,” she said. “I've always told people, you can go watch a guitar player and pick up a couple things just by watching because you can see their hands moving, and you can kind of see things happening in front of your face. But singing, you can't really understand the mechanics of that by watching somebody do it. You have to go and learn how to control your breath and how to hold yourself. I'm always trying to figure out different ways to do it and stretch my capabilities. I've grown a lot as a singer.”

Nor is she resting on her instrumentalist laurels, as she works on her six-string skills each time she goes on stage.

“Guitar is a never-ending journey,” Fish said. “You talk to any of these guys out here, these stellar, badass players, and everybody is still looking for it. We're all still searching for it. That's kind of what makes it fun.”