The DEATH WISH TWO

After teaming up for a fiery EP late last year, celebrated blueser Samantha Fish and Texas troublemaker Jesse Dayton have returned with their first long-player, Death Wish Blues

- Joshua M. Miller

SINCE RELEASING LIVE BAIT, HER 2009 DEBUT album with the Samantha Fish Blues Band, Fish, a Missouri native, has built a rabid fanbase and garnered mega acclaim (including one of four different November 2019 Guitar World covers), thanks in part to an eclectic and energetic mix of styles, including rock, blues, soul and funk, all of which is occasionally delivered with a side of tasteful slide, sometimes played on a cigar box guitar. Since releasing her seventh and most recent studio album, 2021’s Faster, she’s kept an increasingly busy touring schedule, playing gigs around the world.

But toward the end of ’21, after touring behind Faster for a few months, Fish realized she was ready for a new challenge — or at least a new “old” challenge; for well over a decade, she’d wanted to collaborate on a project with another guitar player. In fact, she hadn’t really worked with another guitarist since the Girls with Guitars albums she recorded with Cassie Taylor, Dani Wilde and Victoria Smith back in 2011 and 2012.

Enter Jesse Dayton.
Dayton, a Texas native, has been recording quality albums and making the rockabilly rounds since the mid Nineties. He’s found success mining East Texas/Louisianainspired blues, outlaw country and punk rock. In addition to performing as a solo artist, he’s played with Social Distortion, the Supersuckers, George Strait, Ryan Bingham and X — and recorded with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson, among scores of others.