Tab Benoit is a Cajun man who’s definitely got the blues. Born November 17, 1967, he grew up in Houma, Louisiana. A guitar player since his teenage years, he hung out at the Blues Box, a ramshackle music club and cultural center in nearby Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends.

The nightly impromptu gigs were enough to inspire Benoit to assemble his own band – a stripped down bass-and-drums unit propelled by his solid guitar skills and leathery, Cajun-spiced vocal attack. He took his show on the road in the early ‘90s and hasn’t stopped since.

Benoit landed a recording contract with the tiny, Texas-based Justice Records and released a series of well-received recordings, beginning in 1992 with Nice and Warm, an album that prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Despite the hype, Benoit has done his best over the years to maintain a commitment to his Cajun roots – a goal that often eluded him when past producers and promoters tried to turn him and his recordings in a rock direction, often against his better instincts. These Blues Are All Mine, released on Vanguard in 1999 after Justice folded, marked a return to the rootsy sound that he’d been steered away from for several years.

That same year, he appeared on Homesick for the Road, a collaborative album on Telarc International, a division of Concord Music Group, with fellow guitarists Kenny Neal and Debbie Davies. Homesick not only served as a showcase for three relatively young but clearly rising stars in the blues constellation, but also launched Benoit’s relationship with Telarc that came to fruition in 2002 with the release of Wetlands – arguably the most authentically Cajun installment in his entire ten-year discography.

Later in 2002, Benoit released Whiskey Store, a collaborative recording with fellow axemaster and Telarc labelmate Jimmy Thackery. Also along for the ride on Whiskey Store are harpist Charlie Musselwhite and Double Trouble – the two-man rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton that backed Stevie Ray Vaughn on his brief but luminous blues career.

After a prolific first year with Telarc, Benoit continued to explore the bayou backbeat in 2003 with the June release of Sea Saint Sessions, a collection of gritty, Cajun-flavored tracks recorded at Big Easy Recording Studio (better known among musicians in the region as Sea Saint Studio) in New Orleans. In addition to Benoit and his regular crew – bassist Carl Dufrene and drummer Darryl White – Sea Saint Sessions includes numerous guest appearances by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Cyril Neville, Brian Stoltz and George Porter.

That same year, Benoit and Thackery took their dueling guitar show on the road and recorded a performance at the Unity Centre for Performing Arts in Unity, Maine. The result is Whiskey Store Live, a high-energy guitar fest released in February 2004.

Benoit returned in 2005 with Fever for the Bayou, a straight up Louisiana blues recording that seamlessly merges his own songcraft with that of Elmore James, Buddy Guy and other masters. Fever for the Bayou also includes guest appearances by Cyril Neville (vocals and percussion) and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (vocals).

Benoit dug further into his roots in 2006 with the release of Brother to the Blues, a recording that encompasses not only his trademark Cajun blues but also traditional country and vintage R&B. Joining him on the project are members of the cult blues/R&B/rock combo Louisiaina LeRoux, veteran country songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, Americana pioneer Jim Lauderdale and Cajun fiddler Waylon Thibodeaux. Brother to the Blues received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album.

Benoit’s Power of the Pontchartrain, released in June 2007, is in many ways a musical tribute to the natural beauty of his homeland and the dedication and perseverance of those who still live there.

An environmental activist as well as a stellar blues musician, Benoit has made the preservation of the endangered delta wetlands his personal crusade. He serves as president of Voice of the Wetlands, an environmental organization he co-founded in 2003, and he appeared prominently in Hurricane on the Bayou, a 2006 documentary by filmmaker McGillivray Freeman that chronicles life in Louisiana after Katrina. Hurricane on the Bayou played in iMax theaters in the U.S., Canada and Europe throughout 2007.

In 2007, Benoit won the dual awards of B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Best Contemporary Male Performer at the Blues Music Awards (formerly the W.C. Handy Awards) in Memphis.

Benoit’s 2008 release, Night Train to Nashville, was recorded at The Place On Second Street in Nashville in May 2007. The set captures the magic and intensity of Benoit in a live setting, joined by his faithful backup unit and New Orleans mainstay, Louisiana’s LeRoux, and a series of guests representing some of the most talented voices on the current blues, Cajun and country scenes: harpist/vocalist Jimmy Hall (Wet Willie), guitarist/vocalist Jim Lauderdale, harpist/accordionist Johnny Sansone, fiddler/washboard player Waylon Thibodeaux and harpist/vocalist and Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson.

In 2010, Benoit received the Governor’s Award for Conservationist of the Year for 2009 from the Louisiana Wildlife Federation.

Medicine, Benoit’s latest release on Telarc, successfully joins two gifted guitarists/songwriters in a session that proves greater than the sum of its very talented parts. Set for April 2011, the 11-track recording features seven new Benoit originals co-written with ace songwriter Anders Osborne. Engineered by David Z, Medicine spotlights the work of keyboardist Ivan Neville, drummer Brady Blade and bassist Corey Duplechin. Fiddler/singer Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil makes a special appearance on three tracks.

"You should always get outside of the box," Samantha Fish says while discussing her boundary-breaking new album Belle of the West. "Challenging yourself is how you grow."

After launching her recording career in 2009, Samantha Fish quickly established herself as a rising star in the contemporary blues world.  Since then, the charismatic young singer-guitarist-songwriter has earned a reputation as a rising guitar hero and powerful live performer, while releasing a series of acclaimed albums that have shown her restless creative spirit consistently taking her in new and exciting musical directions. 

The New York Times called Fish "an impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power" and "one of the genre's most promising young talents."  Her hometown paper The Kansas City Star noted, "Samantha Fish has kicked down the door of the patriarchal blues club" and observed that the young artist "displays more imagination and creativity than some blues veterans exhibit over the course of their careers."

Having already made it clear that she's more interested in following her heart than she is in repeating past triumphs, Samantha Fish delivers some of her most compelling music to date with Belle of the West, her fifth studio album.  The deeply soulful, personally charged 11-song set showcases Fish's sublime acoustic guitar skills as well as her rootsy, emotionally resonant songwriting.

Such memorable new originals as "American Dream," "Blood in the Water," "Need You More" and "Don't Say You Love Me" demonstrate the artist's knack for organic Americana songcraft, while a trio of cover tunes—R.L. Burnside's "Poor Black Mattie," Lillie Mae's "Nearing Home" and the Jimbo Mathus-penned title track—attest to her substantial interpretive skills as well as her varied musical interests. 

"To me, this is a natural progression," Fish notes. "It's a storytelling record by a girl who grew up in the Midwest.  It's very personal.  I really focused on the songwriting and vocals, the melodies and emotion, and on bringing another dimension to what I do.  I wasn't interested in shredding on guitar, although we ended up with a few heavier tracks.  I love Mississippi blues; there's something very soulful and very real about that style of music, so this was a chance to immerse myself in that."

Fish recorded Belle of the West in the relaxed, rural creative atmosphere of the legendary Zebra Ranch Studios in the North Hills of Mississippi with producer Luther Dickinson (of North Mississippi Allstars fame), with whom she worked previously on her 2015 album Wild Heart.  The studio team included some of the region's most iconoclastic musicians, including Dickinson, solo artist and Jack White associate Lillie Mae (whose distinctive vocals are featured on "Nearing Home"), much-traveled juke- joint blues artist Lightnin' Malcolm (whose featured on "Poor Black Mattie"), Squirrel Nut Zippers founder Jimbo Mathus, upright bassist and beloved solo artist Amy LaVere, Tikyra Jackson, Trina Raimey and Shardé Thomas, granddaughter of the legendary Southern bluesman Otha Turner. 

"I wanted to do this acoustic-electric record, and tap into the style and swagger of Mississippi," Fish states, adding, "Any time you dive into another place, another vibe and a new group of people, you're challenging yourself to grow musically.  I felt very at home a Zebra Ranch, and I've known Luther and Malcolm for years, so it was a very comfortable situation.  When you're making a record like this, it has to feel natural if you want people to respond to it.

Belle of the West follows on the heels of Fish's March 2017 release Chills & Fever, which achieved top 10 status in the Billboard Blues charts. Here she expanded her stylistic arsenal to take on a set of lesser-known vintage R&B gems, with help from members of garage-soul stalwarts the Detroit Cobras. "Having these two very different records come out back to back this year has been really liberating," says Samantha.

The creative drive that fuels Belle of the West and Chills & Fever has been a crucial element of Samantha Fish's approach from the beginning.  Growing up in a musical family in Kansas City, Missouri, she became obsessed with music early life, taking up drums before switching to guitar at the age of 15. By the time she was 20, she had formed her own trio and self-released her first album.  She soon caught the ear of the renowned blues label Ruf Records, which in 2011 released Girls with Guitars, which teamed her with fellow axewomen Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde.  The same year saw Ruf release Fish's solo studio debut Runaway.  The album was named Best Artist Debut at the 2012 Blues Music Awards in Memphis.

Black Wind Howlin' (2013) and Wild Heart (2015) followed, winning considerable critical acclaim and further establishing Fish as a prominent presence in the blues community.  Wild Heart reached the top slot on Billboard's blues chart.  She also collaborated with blues-rock veterans Jimmy Hall and Reese Wynans on the 2013 project The Healers.  The same year, she jammed onstage with blues icon Buddy Guy, and guested on Devon Allman's album Turquoise.

Fish continues to maintain the same hardworking, prolific approach that's carried her this far.  "I think I've always had that," she says.  "Music is my life, so what other choice do I have but to go out and make music?  We do tour quite a bit, and maybe it's kind of crazy to put out two dramatically different albums in one year.  But I like to work hard.  This is who I am and this is what I do, and when I'm writing and recording and touring is when I feel the most like myself.  And now we have a moment where people are paying attention, so I have to make the most of it.  I feel like I have a lot to say right now, so why not say it?"

As far as Samantha Fish is concerned, her musical future is an open road.  "I'm never gonna be a traditional blues artist, because that's not who I am," she asserts.  "But it's all the blues for me.  When Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf came out, what they were doing didn't sound like anything that had been done in blues before.  You've gotta keep that kind of fire and spirit.  I'm never gonna do Muddy Waters better than Muddy Waters, so I have to be who I am and find my best voice.