Honed On The Road, Samantha Fish's Music Is Bold And Expressive

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Published January 23, 2020 at 10:29 AM EST

Samantha Fish performing live for World Cafe

Nothing about the music Samantha Fish makes suggests that she's ever been shy. Bold and expressive, it shows off her considerable talent – but it took a bit of a push for Fish to get on stage for the first time. The then-17-year-old musician was handed a guitar in front of 200 people at a house party; since then, she's never stopped wanting to play live before a crowd.

These days, Fish can be found touring relentlessly; when not on tour, she loves experimenting in the studio. Her latest studio album, Kill Or Be Kind,was released late last year. In this session, I talk to Samantha Fish about her work ethic, but first, hear a live performance recorded for World Cafe from that new album. Listen for her guitar work, some of which she does on a cigar box guitar, but also for the way her voices changes between the verse and the chorus. Hear the complete session in the player above.

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Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

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