It would be a mistake to oversimplify the blues by defining the genre as nothing more than “songs about sad stuff.” Surely, like certain religions that tell us all life is suffering (and yes, that is also an oversimplification), the blues are rooted in humankind’s universal, lizard-brain responses triggered by heartache, loss, and lowered expectations. Oh, and then we get a guitar solo, or maybe some bitchin’ organ crescendos to take us to church. The blues, oversimplified.
The magic of the blues – its secret sauce, if you will – is the visceral, ubiquitous connective tissue, the essence of our species’ humanity. Everybody gets the blues. Universal empathy is inherent in many musical genres, but there is a reason the blues in particular are a worldwide musical phenomenon. Something distinctively earthy, verdant, and even bloody is alive in the blues.
Anyone can get the blues. A toddler, when she scrapes her knee. A middle schooler whose first crush is unrequited. Voters, when their candidate loses. (Man, that one still hurts.) My mother got the blues bad when my father died a few years ago at 92. Did I say “anyone“? I mean, everyone. Everyone gets the blues.
The irony is that a blues concert can be incredibly uplifting, spiritual, joyful. Toes tap, couples dance, smiles sparkle up our eyes and lift the corners of our mouth until they ache.
In fact, possibly the best antidote for having the blues is to head on down to the nearest blues concert. Ironic, right?
That’s exactly what several hundred Bay Area peeps did on Monday night. Hard to say how many people were feeling low when they walked into the Fillmore, but it’s a darn good bet that the count was far lower a few hours later when everybody left.
Samantha Fish is currently headlining her “Shake ‘Em on Down” tour with Cedric Burnside and Jon Spencer in supporting roles. It’s a pan-American lineup – Fish is from Kansas City, Spencer is from New Hampshire, and Burnside was born in Tennessee and raised in Mississippi. The tour is finishing the year in style with several dates up and down the California coast.
Is it a cliché that any woman who plays ripping electric guitar solos gets called “bad ass”? Perhaps, but I’m going to go there anyway: Samantha Fish is bad ass. You’ll probably see a picture of her in the dictionary if you looked up the word “macho.” Or “sexy.” Or “beast.” Bill Graham once wrote that he thought Otis Redding, when he took the stage at the Fillmore so many years ago, was dripping with more sexuality than anyone he’d ever seen. Fish might give even a dead man in his grave pause to reconsider. (No disrespect, we miss you, Uncle Bobo!)
With Samantha Fish, we’re talking “Get the fuck out of my way, I’m here to take what’s mine!” sensuality, just so we’re clear. (The blues are ironic, remember?)
Bad ass women who shred blues guitars are having a moment right now. Bonnie Raitt was a Kennedy Center honoree this month. Larkin Poe is moving up music festival lineups to top tier. Susan Tedeschi is already there. Only 18, Grace Bowers recently played on The Tonight Show, she’s poised to blow up. (Haven’t heard of her yet? You will.) Yes, we will run out of fingers and toes counting all the bad ass women on blues guitars going back even before Elizabeth Cotton. Everything old is new again. More blues irony.
You want to know what she played? Set list, schmet list; she played the fucking blues, okay?! Heavy rock ‘n’ roll blues. Wicked-ass shitface-inducing guitar solo blues. You’d better listen to me, asshole, because I’m singing right now — so shut up and pay attention! Blues that was inspired by pain and suffering (and maybe seasoned with just a little bit of gloating). Blues that serves to escape melancholia rather than wallow in it.
For the record, the lady can sing too. In the midst of a long set full of bombast and bravado, Fish whipped out “Dream Girl” – just in case anyone wasn’t paying attention to her pitch-perfect vocal delivery. Then, having proved her point she built back up to a cyclone of wind-whipped fire and brimstone.
For an encore, Fish had Jon Spencer join her on stage. She had him kneel on the ground so she could tower over him and make it clear who’s the boss. Fun was had.
Samantha Fish isn’t about suffering; she’s about freeing your heart, and then your mind will follow. Trust the Fish; she knows.
Some blues history connects the two openers. Cedric Burnside’s grandfather R. L. Burnside played the blues in relative obscurity for decades before finally hitting pay-dirt in his septuagenarian years. The breakthrough critical acclaim and record sales for his music was in great part due to the elder Burnside becoming the opening act and sometime collaborator with Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion in the mid ’90s. (Fish has credited the elder Burnside as an influence, so it’s all full-circle.)
The younger Burnside, a true scion of the genre, plays blues guitar much like the old masters. His picking style is rhythmic, almost percussive, and you can taste every bite. Burnside’s north Mississippi boogies are mined from the same rich vein that yielded John Lee Hooker and later the aptly named North Mississippi Allstars. It’s electrified porch music with hints of Chicago, whiskey, and card games played on folding tables in smokey kitchens.
His bass player actually uses a Bass VI—a six-string instrument tuned to the bass register without any pedals. His drummer sits right up front, the trio spread out laterally across the stage. All cool beans.
Jon Spencer is, relatively speaking, the old guard on this tour. His Blues Explosion was the blues shit in the extended jam world in the 90s. Now unchained to his longtime band, Spencer still explodes with the blues on stage. He’s a ball of fire, all angsty with his fuzztone and ‘tude both cranked up to eleven. His young accompanists on bass and drums were equally fuzzy and frenetic.
Spencer may hail from the end days of the last century, but his vibe is MC5 and Ten Years After. (Fish, by the way, opened her set with a cover of the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams.”) Who needs coffee with this guy around?!
