With a Twist
“MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GUITAR HAS ALWAYS EBBED AND FLOWED. IT’S A LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LITTLE BIT OF HATE, RELATIONSHIP”
SAMANTHA FISH IS driving through New Orleans in a race to beat curfew. Sunset will come in a few hours, plunging her adopted city into darkness for the third of several nights to come, and there’s a lot of business to handle before she taps out again. Three days earlier, Fish was preparing to fly home after a gig in Indiana as Hurricane Ida, the fifth most powerful hurricane to ever make landfall in the U.S., struck southeastern Louisiana and effectively shut down New Orleans.
“They wouldn’t let anybody fly in or out, so I missed the storm itself, but I came back to see how we did and get my kitties and do the things you’re supposed to do,” she says over the phone. “Today’s just been a mad scramble to get everything together, because once it gets dark, it’s totally dark. The transmission tower that runs all the power to New Orleans fell into the Mississippi River during the storm.”
“I’M LUCKY I HAVE A FAN BASE THAT TOLERATES MY MUSICAL INTERESTS, BECAUSE WE’VE CHANGED UP FROM RECORD TO RECORD ”
Fish’s race against the clock today is a stark contrast to the process of creating (Rounder), her new and seventh solo album. Like so many other musicians, she was off the
