Dunbar Music Group presents
Samantha Fish – The Paper Doll World Tour
with special guest Texas Headhunters

Thursday May 14th at Marion Cultural and Civic Center – 7pm
In Coordination with 95.1 STEVE-FM and Holiday Inn Express of Marion
Tickets go on sale Friday, February 27th @ 10AM at ilshows.com and start at just $29.99.
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One of the most formidable guitarists of her generation, Samantha Fish deals in her own unmatched brand of bravado, bringing both mind-blowing power and extraordinary emotionality to everything she creates. Since first introducing the world to her larger-than-life talent, the multi-award-winning festival headliner has built a triumphant career whose latest milestones include earning a Grammy nomination for Death Wish Blues (her 2023 collaboration with rocker Jesse Dayton) and opening for The Rolling Stones on their final 2024 U.S. tour date. On her new album Paper Doll, Fish offers up nine powerhouse songs that hit with an unstoppable force, each delivered with an exquisite dose of illuminating insight, soul-soothing empathy, and—above all—newly heightened clarity of vision. “It’s taken me years to finally find my voice in a studio setting,” Fish admits. “But with this record I took everything I had, and slammed it right on the table.”

Fish’s first-ever album recorded with her touring band, Paper Doll takes its title from the first song the Kansas City-bred musician penned for the LP: a raw yet reflective battle cry that perfectly encapsulates the album’s spirit of unapologetic defiance. “That song’s a feminist anthem in a way—but then again, every song’s a feminist anthem when you’re a woman writing from your own experience,” says Fish. “It’s about rebelling against other people’s expectations of who you’re supposed to be, which feels pretty relevant for the times we’re living in right now.”

A consummate music obsessive who lists such eclectic artists as Prince, Leonard Cohen, and Black Sabbath among her influences, Fish found herself especially fascinated with Delta blues heroes like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside in the writing of Paper Doll. “I love how in a lot of Mississippi Hill Country blues there’s a drone that happens on the low notes and keeps you hypnotized throughout the song,” she says. “A lot of the guitar work on this record is inspired by that style of playing—and then from there it explodes in all different directions, from rock & roll to soul to pop.” In sculpting such an expansive body of work, Fish found an ideal creative partner in Harlow, who also co-wrote a number of songs on Paper Doll. “I can be a perfectionist when it comes to recording, and it was cool to have Bobby around to stop from me trying to robotically hit the exact note over and over,” she says. And as a born performer who got her start by thumbing through the phone book and cold-calling local bars for gigs in her mid-teens, Fish crafted every song on Paper Doll with an eye toward her incendiary live show. “The main goal is to make great songs that tap into whatever I’m feeling at the moment, but at the same time I’m asking, ‘How is this going to feel live?’” she says. “I’m always thinking about how to add to our arsenal of songs and put together an amazing show for when we’re back out on the road.”