Had some cool stuff happening lately, so I want to let you all know!

The Girls and Guitars tour has been great so far, as we just finished the first leg in Germany. We'll be starting up the 2nd leg at the beginning of March. We'll be headed towards Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and a few other places too. Check out tour calendar to see if we're coming to a town near you!

Next week, I'll be heading to Nashville to play for a Blue Star Connection Benefit at Third and Lindsley. Jimmy Hall, Kate Moss, Bart Walker, and Scot Sutherland will all be there! Check out www.bluestarconnection.org for details.

There is still time to vote for the BMA's! The cut off date is March 1st, so hurry and get your votes in! I'm very proud to say that my solo debut, 'Runaway', was nominated for 'Best New Artist Debut'. Also, my friends Trampled Under Foot and Mike Zito are nominated for several awards! Registration and voting can be found at www.blues.org.

Also, I'm really excited to say I've been added as a special guest artist for the October 2012 Blues Cruise! There are still a few cabins available, so bring your trunks!

Check out my calendar as we're always adding dates to the website See you at the show!

BMA News - Samantha Fish has been nominated for 'Best New Artist Debut' for her 2011 release ' Runaway'! You can vote for Samantha and all of your other favorite blues artists here! http://www.blues.org/#ref=bluesmusicawards_index Voting is only open to members of the Blues Foundation, but its easy to register online. Happy voting!

Girls with Guitars News - Girls with Guitars 2012 kicks off this year in Lindewerra, Germany on January 26th! Check out the dates on Samantha's schedule and www.bluescaravan.de to see if the girls are going to be rocking a town near you!

In the seven years since she first picked up a guitar, Samantha Fish has accomplished what scores of musicians strive for throughout their career—and rarely achieve: She secured a record deal, toured the world, and now makes a living solely from her music. By all signs, she seems poised to become a key figure in modern blues. All at the tender age of 22. And she didn’t pull it off by using some Rebecca Black-style YouTube stunt or having an industry connection. She did it the old-fashioned way, by playing her ass off and paying her dues night after night in dingy, smelly clubs.

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2011/Nov/Samantha_Fish_Cachet_22.aspx?Page=1

But this is only the continuation of a pattern that began eight years ago, when then-15-year-old Samantha, who had been playing drums for a couple of years to that point, tired of the restrictions on the hours she could play in her parents’ basement in her native Kansas City, KS, and decided to become a guitarist instead. Two years later she was beginning to play out in KCK, jamming with blues bands--KC faves Trampled Under Foot were especially generous in inviting her into their gigs--and soon after that she was leading her own band and packing ‘em in at a club called Knuckleheads, where she became a regular and popular attraction. In 2009 she was playing up to four nights a week and had released a live CD, Live Bait (produced by Trampled Under Foot’s manager Steve McBride), which featured seven Fish originals alongside tunes by Bobby Marchan and R.L. Burnside. In 2010, with an enthusiastic reference from blues guitarist Mike Zito, who had become a big Fish fan, Ruf Records in Germany proffered a recording contract and made her part of an impressive stable of young female blues artists that also include Cassie Taylor, Dani Wilde, Joanne Shaw Taylor and Dana Fuchs. Fish made her Ruf recording debut with labelmates Taylor and Wilde as part of the Girls With Guitars aggregate that toured Europe (and is now in the U.S.) as part of Ruf’s Blues Caravan extravaganza (the domestic release of the Zito-produced Girls With Guitars was reviewed in our June 2011 issue). And now, at age 23, only eight years removed from her first self-taught maneuverings over six strings, Ms. Fish is introducing herself as a Ruf solo artist with the impressive (and also Zito-produced) Runaway album, comprised, like Live Bait, of Fish originals (eight, to be precise), a Fish co-write with Zito and an exceptional cover of Tom Petty’s “Louisiana Rain.”

Head on over and read the rest!

Maybe it just seems like most of the hottest new guitar players in the blues world are women. In all due respect to the men out there, some of the most exciting blues artists of late include Dana Fuchs, Fiona Boyes, Ana Popovic, Joanna Shaw Taylor, among others.

Add the name of Kansas City native Samantha Fish to that list. Coming off the strength of the excellent Ruf album Girls with Guitars, on which she collaborated with Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde, Ms. Fish has now released her excellent debut solo release, Runaway.

Read the rest of the review.