After the Grammy Award–nominated success of her 2025 album Paper Doll, Samantha Fish is following up with Paper Doll Live, recorded October 7 at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The set — 16 songs digitally, 15 on CD and nine on LP — arrives June 12, with Fish and her band joined by the McCrary Sisters on backing vocals.
“Rounder Records started talking about it sometime in the spring of last year, and many fans have been asking for it for years. It was just never the right time,” Fish tells us via Zoom. “Paper Doll really lent itself to the stage. I've noticed every song from that record really does work well when you bring it to the stage, and I feel like the audience has really gotten ahold of it and gets it.
“I think the label heard that potential and they thought it would be a great time to put it out. It's nice when everybody is on the same page.”
Paper Doll Live is arguably Fish’s first — or at least most authentic — concert souvenir. Her first-ever album, Live Bait in 2009, was an independent release that led to her first recording contract with Ruf Records.
But with the hindsight of 17 years and 12 albums in between, Fish now considers it “a really shitty one. I did it myself; I burned the discs on my laptop, so it was very bootleg, and not very good. I didn't have any experience recording or getting good sounds. We literally walked into that thing to capture something.”
Her other live presentation came on 2012’s Girls With Guitars Live, certainly better but a shared experience with Dani Wilde and Victoria Smith.
So Fish considers Paper Doll Live to be “my first real, real one,” demonstrating her growth as a player, singer and bandleader over that time.
“It's just about 15 years of putting hard work into your craft,” she says. “I think I'm better at what I do now all around. I think I'm a better writer, a better singer, a better guitar player, a better musician just all-around.
“I think I have more confidence in what I'm doing. I know the sounds I want. Maybe I still don't know what I'm doing, but I like to think I do.
“It's just a confidence, and I've got a lot of records behind me at this point, so there's a lot of material. The band on this record is incredible, and everybody gels so well together. That makes it easy to just go in and hit ‘record’ and do it.”
The band on this record is incredible, and everybody gels so well together. That makes it easy to just go in and hit ‘record’ and do it.”
— Samantha Fish
Paper Doll Live features extended treatments of several Fish songs, including “Black Wind Howlin’,” along with a biting rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.”
“Any time you have a song fade out on a record, you've got to figure out what you're gonna do live,” Fish notes. “I thought ‘Lose You’ was gonna be damn near impossible to recreate live because on the Paper Doll album it's so lush and all of the guitar parts are kind of squished. I used all kinds of different guitars to create that sound.
“But it became really fun to play. We kinda messed with the arrangement. The same with ‘Don't Say It,’ another song that faded on the record and we had to come up with an ending for it. I think the ending we have is exciting and dynamic, and it takes it to a new place, and that's what you're supposed to do in a live setting. You're supposed to kind of reimagine the songs, even if they're brand new.”
Paper Doll Live opens with MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” which morphs into Paper Doll’s title track.
“We used to have it as our walk-out music when I was on the Faster tour,” Fish explains. “We walked out to it every night, and it's such a great song. You hear it every night and it's just getting drilled in. When I started touring with Jesse Dayton for the Death Wish Blues show after that, I was like, ‘We're walking out to this great song every night. Can we just play it?’ It's such a great show-opener.
There's just some really great musicians from Detroit, really easygoing, cool people. I love it.”
— Samantha Fish
“So we started playing it and it was kind of like serendipitous, 'cause [MC5 manager] John Sinclair ended up writing our liner notes for Death Wish Blues, so there was this kind of connection that feels important. And after that I just kept playing the song, 'cause it kicks ass and people like it and request it.”
The song also continues Fish’s “love affair with Detroit” that began with 2017’s Chills & Fever, which she recorded in the Motor City with Bobby Harlow of The Go, who also helmed Paper Doll.
“I've always loved the music that came out of there — the soul, the rock and roll,” Fish says. “There's just some really great musicians from Detroit, really easygoing, cool people. I love it.”
Fish is also pleased with the older material included on Paper Doll Live, including an extended version of the gentler “Dream Girl.”
“It's a different side to this rock and roll blues show,” she says. “There's a soft element to it.”
The set also includes North Hill Country–influenced songs such as “Black Wind Howlin’” and “Poor Black Mattie.” And the McCrary Sisters are a particular highlight for Fish.
“That's my favorite part, really, is them and their stacked voices,” she says. “I love great singers and I love harmonies, so to be able to really stack them and layer parts like that...They are just the best in the business at it.
I love great singers and I love harmonies, so to be able to really stack them and layer parts like that... [the McCrary Sisters] are just the best in the business at it.”
— Samantha Fish
“They've been doing it for years, and doing it well. They come in and were such a dream to work with and just came out and nailed it. It was great.”
Fish is currently touring the U.S. through May 31 and heads to Europe in June and July. She has additional U.S. dates set for the fall, including a festival in Telluride, Colo., and a Halloween show with Dayton at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood. But her attention will soon turn to Paper Doll’s follow-up, which she says is “currently in the writing phase.”
“It's just sort of this amorphous group of feelings that I'm trying to sort through to make songs and melodies that are catchy to me,” Fish says. “I know that's right around the corner, so I've kinda started digging my heels in a bit and committing to the writing process.”
Like parts of Paper Doll, the next album may be influenced by the sparkly silver Gibson ES-335 she purchased before the album at Eddie’s Guitars near St. Louis.
“That was quite the hit,” she says of the electric guitar. “I'm hoping I can ride that one for maybe one more record.
“That's kind of how guitars work for me; I don't really seek them out. Something will come across my path or I'll see it in a shop and go, ‘That's the one,’ and then I'm really happy about it. I like that; if I was constantly seeking them out and I got something that was like, ‘Oh, I rushed into this, I didn't really want it,’ then I've got a weird relationship with it. So I usually wait for them to come to me, and I know it when it shows up.”
