It’s a chilly Monday night in the City by the Bay on 16 December, but there’s a big bonanza of blues rock set to warm things up at the Fillmore. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Samantha Fish is here as the headliner on her “Shake ‘Em on Down” Tour, which also features Cedric Burnside and Jon Spencer for an entire evening of blues power. Growing up in the Kansas City area, Fish has been carving out a growing career over the past 15 years. That includes a knockout set at the High Sierra Music Festival in 2022 that’s had local fans waiting for a Bay Area show like this one.
Jon Spencer’s presence on the bill provides a retro blast from the past when his Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was a buzz band in the mid-1990s, as they recorded and toured with blues legend R.L. Burnside. Younger music fans might be more familiar with how the band’s rocking fuzz-driven tune “Bellbottoms” was featured in director Edgar Wright’s 2017 indie film hit Baby Driver. Wright says he first got the idea for the film when he was listening to the song, which inspired him to imagine the opening car chase sequence. Spencer also produced Samantha Fish‘s latest album, 2023’s Death Wish Blues, a collaboration with rocker Jesse Dayton that received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
The Fillmore is still filling in when Spencer’s trio hits the stage around 8pm, so it’s still cold inside, with many attendees still wearing jackets or hoodies. But the trio’s hard-charging bluesy sound feels like it starts a sonic campfire, with fans moving closer to the stage to bask in the glow. Tunes from Spencer’s latest album, 2024’s Sick of Being Sick! seems to feature kinetic energy similar to his 1990s heyday, with his charismatic ringleader-style vocals adding a festive flavor to the hot bluesy grooves the band are throwing down. “Bellbottoms” appears at the end for a raucous flashback to 1994’s Orange album, and it’s great to see Jon Spencer back in action.
Cedric Burnside is the grandson of R.L. Burnside, and he’s been staking out a career of his own that carries the Mississippi Hill Country sound forward. First hitting the road at age 13, he played drums for his grandfather, and his 2021 album, I Be Trying, won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson produced the follow-up album Hill Country Love after producing two records for Fish (2015’s Wild Heart and 2017’s Chills & Fever).
It feels like there’s something of a family house party vibe in the air as Burnside’s trio throw another log on the sonic campfire. “Po Black Mattie”, the closing track from Hill Country Love, uses traditional blues riffage to generate a deep groove that conjures a trance-like gospel revival vibe, with Burnside singing, “Woman I got cherry red, need no heater or fireplace by my bed.”
Samantha Fish and her quartet pour gasoline on the sonic campfire with an electrifying sound that mixes more rock into the blues power stew to heat things up to a higher level. The title track from the Wildheart album gets things rocking as Fish rips a fierce guitar solo. “Chills & Fever” seems to build off the classic “Fever” from the 1950s, with Fish utilizing the vintage vibe as a foundation to put a groovy gospel blues sound of her own into effect.
“Somebody’s Always Trying” lights a fuse as Samantha Fish sings a rocking lament about other women trying to take her baby away. The group get into a deeper jam here with a trippy keyboard solo, Fish ripping ferocious blues licks, and bassist Ron Johnson laying down a Band of Gypsys style groove along the lines of “Machine Gun” that really cranks up the psychedelic blues power. Johnson’s no stranger to the Fillmore, having played gigs here as a member of Karl Denson‘s Tiny Universe in the early 2000s, and it’s great to see him back to power a big jam like this one.
The set is really picking up steam now, and the energy keeps flowing as the group rock out on “Deathwish”, featuring some smoking slide guitar from Fish. There’s more tasty slide guitar on “Bulletproof” from 2019’s Kill or Be Kind, as Fish keeps the fire burning while the band’s sound seems to grow even more powerful thanks to her dynamic slide work and fiery vocals. A big jam on “I Put a Spell on You” finds Fish in blues goddess mode, with a powerful vibe that sounds so good here at the Fillmore.
Samantha Fish goes for broke on “Black Wind Howlin'” to close the set, taking the title track from her 2013 album for a wild ride that seems to pay some tribute to Jimi Hendrix‘s “Voodoo Child”, with Johnson also throwing in a “Who Knows” tease as Fish tears it up. Jon Spencer returns to join Fish for a rocking encore teamup of bluestastic proportions that puts an extra festive finish on the evening. Spencer acts as sort of an MC and hype man as he sings an upbeat “Don’t leave me baby” kind of classic blues, while Fish puts him in his place in a playful performance.
Samantha Fish has assembled a solid string of albums over the past decade. Still, as with most artists who like to dig into some improvisation, the studio work doesn’t quite convey what a powerful performer she is live on stage. This woman will rock your socks off, and she’s won many admirers amongst her peers, including an invitation to Eric Clapton’s 2023 Crossroads Festival in Los Angeles. A four-disc recording has popped up on digital platforms that feature Fish jamming with the likes of Eric Gales and Christone Kingfish Ingram, which is some good company to keep. But Fish doesn’t need a man to help her fill the lead guitar slot because she’s a force of nature on her own.
