Only
her hairdresser knows for sure, but last time I saw Kansas City blues guitarist
Samantha Fish at the Xerox Rochester
International Jazz Festival Big Tent, she was a blonde, and part of the Girls With Guitars three-woman ensemble. Wednesday night we all
saw red… redhead, that is, as a now-auburn-tressed Fish
was the only skirt on Dinosaur stage.
Fish
owned the stage with a fierce, frenetic guitar style and smoky vocals. She
served up hot selections off her new “Runaway” album and stuff from the big
book of the blues. My personal favorite was “Killing Floor.”
Fish’s
band was bare bones and bad ass in its tight, terse trio attack — lots of room
for the groove to coil up and strike the feet on the dance floor. However,
there was little room to cut any rug to speak of, as fans of big, bad guitar (and
beautiful redheads) stood slack-jawed ringside.
This article appears in Mar 20-26, 2013.
