Samantha Fish - Paper Doll Live World Tour

Artist Presale: 5/20 at 10am
Public on Sale: 5/22 at 10am

Samantha Fish

Samantha Fish, a leading guitarist of her generation, is known for her boldness, musicianship, and emotional depth. A multi-award-winning festival headliner, she’s celebrated for explosive live shows, fearless songwriting, and artistic command. Her second GRAMMY nomination recognizes Paper Doll, an album of nine powerful, defiant songs. With her upcoming live album, Paper Doll Live, Fish showcases the electrifying stage presence that defines her career.

“Truly, this is for the fans,” Fish says of making her first official live record. “We’ve had numerous requests over the years. Paper Doll felt so great on stage — it felt like the perfect time to showcase the band and our live show.”

Recorded at the historic The Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee, the album bottles the kind of electricity that can’t be manufactured in a studio. The room’s natural warmth and acoustics created an ideal backdrop, elevated even further by the addition of Nashville gospel royalty The McCrary Sisters. “Their voices lifted every song,” Fish explains. “I love beautiful backing vocals — they pack an emotional punch. I’ve been a fan of them for years, so that was really special for me.”

The energy in the theater was undeniable. Fans traveled from across the country for the recording. “Our fans aren’t afraid to travel,” she says. “When we announced this show, people got excited. I think that build-up always helps make a better show.” The result is a performance that feels both celebratory and ferocious — a band fully locked in, feeding off a crowd that knows every lyric.

While Paper Doll in the studio marked a breakthrough in Fish’s self-possession — “I took everything I had and slammed it right on the table,” she said of that album — the live setting strips away polish and leaves only instinct. “There’s a fire that comes across in live performance that doesn’t always translate in studio albums,” Fish notes. “The stage lays all of that bare.”

Songs evolve in real time. Outros stretch. Faded studio endings are reborn with decisive climaxes. Tracks like “Lose You” build with relentless momentum, while “Sweet Southern Sounds” allows Fish to lean into her hypnotic North Mississippi-inspired guitar phrasing. The title track “Paper Doll” lands as a defiant feminist anthem night after night, igniting crowds with its refusal to conform. And when the band rips into a cover of “Kick Out the Jams” by MC5, the room detonates.

For Fish, the difference between studio and stage is elemental. “The studio is where you build and create your sound,” she says. “The stage is where you execute all of that. Having a crowd takes you out of your head and gives you something to play off.”

Emerging from Kansas City’s blues lineage and shaped by influences as varied as Prince, Leonard Cohen, and Mississippi Hill Country blues legends, Fish has always treated performance as her proving ground. From cold-calling bars as a teenager to headlining international festivals, she has honed a live show that balances catharsis and control, boldness and vulnerability.

With Paper Doll Live, she isn’t reinventing herself — she’s documenting what has worked all along. “I just wanted to capture what we do every night,” she says. “It wasn’t about chasing something new. It was about capturing the thing that has connected so deeply over the years.”

If Paper Doll was a declaration of artistic power, Paper Doll Live is the sound of that power unleashed — immediate, unfiltered, and impossible to ignore.