An interview with Amanda Fish - Like a Fish to Water

US-based blues artist Amanda Fish recently released her third album Kingdom via Vizztone Records. The record follows off the back of Amanda’s sophomore release Free, which debuted on the Top Ten Billboard Blues Chart and nabbed the Missouri native a 2019 Blues Music Award for Best Emerging Artist album.

WORDS: Adam Kennedy PIX: Supplied

The pandemic had a profound impact on Amanda Fish and the music industry alike. Amanda’s observations and life experiences during this period fed into her latest offering. “A lot of these songs were written over the last six years,” said Fish. “Things that I saw during COVID and things I saw in the nursing home where I worked and things, I saw other musicians doing, the way that the industry behaved. And it’s just a lot of my observations of that time. And these were things that I was starting to see pre-COVID, but then COVID, I think, really amplified everything.”

Of course, without the ability to tour due to restrictions brought about by COVID, challenges set in fast for the blues artist. “All of our tours fell off,” explains Amanda. “We lost our health insurance. I was seven months pregnant with our first child when that happened. But there was also a lot of beauty in that too, because a lot of people saw our plight and saw the plight of a lot of musicians, and they gave us opportunities. Can’t Stop the Blues was an online show and that was amazing that they did that for so many musicians and enabled us to still make some kind of a living.”

With the imminent arrival of a new member of Amanda’s family, the performer had to reevaluate. “After I gave birth in September of 2020, I had to have a hard conversation with my husband, who is my drummer, and I said, look, I don’t know when these tours are coming back. I don’t know if the shows are coming back. I don’t know what life is going to look like from here on out, but we have to stop waiting for everything to come back and we have to go get real jobs. And so, I went to school for a couple of months to get my CNA, which is a certified nurse aide, which is essential. My husband got a job cleaning at a hospital.”

Before Amanda knew it she was working on the front line as a healthcare worker during the pandemic. “Those were considered essential jobs and things that couldn’t be shut down. So, I started working in the nursing home in January of 2021 and we’d already seen online just all of the restrictions that they were put under and that COVID always managed to find its way in anyway, and it would just tear through them like a wildfire.”

It was in the nursing home that Amanda found a new place to use her musical gift. “At the end of your life, you tend to be more religious. And a lot of these people were deeply religious and had no church of any kind,” explains Amanda.

With the pandemic restrictions preventing residents of the nursing home from congregating in church, Amanda found a way of bringing a form of service to the care facility. “I happened to be working there in April for Easter. And so, I sat down, and I got my notebook out and I learned every hymn that I could get my hands on, the older hymns for the older folks. And I gave them an Easter concert. And I just got to see how music would affect people that otherwise wouldn’t talk. You would get a nonverbal resident that’s barely responsive at all. And you got them in the wheelchair pushing them down the hall and you’re singing, and then you hear this nonverbal person that’s barely responsive responding. These songs just work their way into their brain. So, I got to see that even though music had been shut down, we were deeply essential for humans. And I got to use both gifts to help those people. I got to use the gift of my CNA and caregiving, but then I also because of my CNA, I got to have access to use my gift of music to give them something that they hadn’t had in over a year.”

Pandemic aside, themes such as riots and government corruption seen through the eyes of a new parent and frontline worker feature on Amanda’s latest album. Recent single Mockingbird is an example of this. The title refers to Operation Mockingbird. Speaking about the background behind the song, Amanda said: “Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes.” Amanda adds: “They said they wanted to feed disinformation through the news media to confuse the enemy because we were fighting a war at the time. So, I don’t know what year they’re saying that it started, but I think we were fighting a war at the time. Anyway, the purpose of that was to confuse the enemy as to what we were doing in the field. At least that was their stated purpose. And my song alleges that Operation Mockingbird never ended. They claim that it did, but I don’t think so.”

Kingdom was recorded and mixed by Paul Niehaus IV at Blue Lotus Studio in St Louis. As a native of the St Louis area, Amanda called upon one of the city’s prominent blues maestros as a guest on the record by way of Jeremiah Johnson. Speaking about their connection, Amanda said: “We’re on the same circuit basically. But the way that I got to know Jeremiah was when we first moved to St. Louis in 2018, I didn’t know anybody. And Jeremiah pulled me on a show opening for him out here,” she recalls. “He introduced me to the St. Louis crowd and also other venues in St. Louis. And we did a few shows together and he just helped me. He just helped me so much. And there were a couple of people that saw me from that introduced me to this person and that person. And it just grew and grew, but it was really between Jeremiah and Jackson. They were the two people that really helped me start out here in the scene.”

Aside from a guest appearance from the previously mentioned Jeremiah Johnson, the record features a core group of musicians including Terry Midkiff, Dom Knott, Dylan Farrell, Glen James, and Paul Niehaus IV, along with friends Mama Moo, Billie Baumann, Bob Walther, to name but a few. With further guest spots by way of Richard Rosenblatt and Billy Evanochko. A talented bunch, perhaps you will agree?

Kingdom features ten original songs written and sung by Amanda. Of course, Amanda’s debut Down In The Dirt resulted in the artist winning the “Sean Costello Rising Star” Blues Blast Music Award and her follow-up with a Top Ten Billboard Blues Chart placement and accompanying Blues Music Award. High achievements have already been attained up to this point in Fish’s career. Speaking about Kingdom, Amanda said: “I’m pretty proud of it. It’s probably the best work I’ve ever done to this point. We’ve really matured a lot.” Based on that sentiment alone, perhaps there will be more awards in the US artist’s future. I guess only time will tell.

Kingdom by Amanda Fish will be released via VizzTone Records on 26th July 2024.