KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Ruf Records blues-rock guitarist/singer Samantha Fish who won a 2012 Blues Music Award-winning label debut, Runaway, will perform a free show in Gulf Shores on April 23.

Samantha recalls her first musical taste as the classic rock of The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty, alongside contemporary artists like Sheryl Crow and The Black Crowes, but after several underage clandestine visits to the Knuckleheads Saloon blues club in her native Kansas City, she followed the thread from modern masters like Zito and Tab Benoit, through fallen ‘80s heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan, right back to the pre-war Delta masters.

“I fell in love with it,” she told Premier Guitar of her growing passion for the form, “and started doing my homework by listening to the old guys like Son House and Skip James.”

As part of the Music In Meyer Park series, Samantha will take the stage at 6 p.m.

Her second album, Black Wind Howlin, produced by Mike Zito, who did the same honors on her debut album, was recorded at Dockside Studios in Maurice, La., in September of 2013.

It features Samantha’s blazing guitar and vocals backed by Mike Zito on guitar and vocals, plus his fellow Royal Southern Brotherhood members Yonrico Scott on drums/percussion and Charlie Wooton on bass. Special guests include Paul Thorn on vocals, Johnny Sansone on harmonica and Bo Thomas on fiddle.

Samantha has been on a major roll ever since she teamed up with Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde on Ruf’s 2011 release, Girls with Guitars, and fueled by the trio’s Blues Caravan tour of Europe and the U.S., created an international buzz in the blues world.

Later that same year she recorded Runaway, her solo debut on Ruf, which mixed gutsy riff-blues rockers like “Down In The Swamp” with the mellow small-hours jazz of “Feelin’ Alright,” while marinating her songwriting in the groove of the Rolling Stones and even tipping a hat to Heart.

“It’s all the sounds I grew up with,” she explained at the time, “with my own spin.”

Earlier this year Samantha joined labelmate Devon Allman for a sultry duet of the Tom Petty classic, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” that appeared on Devon’s Turquoise CD and accompanying video.

Hitting a receptive international blues and rock press, Runaway was hailed as a thrilling opening statement, earning a string of rave reviews and radio airplay, climaxed by her winning the Blues Music Award (BMA) for “Best New Artist Debut” in 2012.

“I’m truly humbled by the recognition,” Samantha said afterward.

Samantha unleashes a major storm of her trademark guitar work and soulful vocals on Black Wind Howlin’.

“It has a rebellious streak,” says the bandleader of her game-changing new album, “and a prevalent theme is, ‘I’m not gonna take your crap anymore…’”

No “sophomore slump” here, as Black Wind Howlin’ leaps from the speakers with 12 smoking tracks that chart Samantha’s evolution as songwriter, gunslinger and lyricist.

“Since completing Runaway back in 2011, I’ve been on tour pretty much non-stop,” she proclaims. “I’ve spent a lot of time writing, playing and listening to music. I feel like the themes and the sound of my music have matured. To me, it’s about the human experience from my perspective, as well as people I’ve come into contact with over the last few years.”

Rather than trying to duplicate what she accomplished on her first success, Samantha re-defines her sound throughout the tracks on Black Wind Howlin’. She can be brutally rocking on cuts like the tour bus snapshot of “Miles To Go” (“Twelve hours to Reno/10 hours til the next show”), the swaggering “Sucker Born” (“Vegas left me weary, LA bled me dry/skating on fumes as I crossed the Nevada line…”) and the venomous “Go To Hell” (“Oh, this ain’t my first rodeo/You hit yourself a dead end/Your voodoo eyes, ain’t gonna cast a spell/So you can go to hell!”).

“I’ve become tougher,” she notes of these head-banging moments, “and I think that was reflected in the sound we went for.”

And yet, elsewhere, backed by the versatile production of longtime collaborator Mike Zito, you’ll find Samantha shifting gears to the aching slide-guitar balladry of “Over You” (“Echoing words, said I’d never make it on my own…”) and the redemptive country song, “Last September” (“Don’t remember the curves of my face/Can’t feel the warmth in my embrace/Well I’m here to remind you…”).

She might stop off for a gritty cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Who’s Been Talking,” and co-wrote “Go to Hell” with Zito, but all other tracks are Samantha’s self-penned originals, and it’s a mix that will keep listeners on their toes.

“I wanted this record to have a modern rocking sound,” she explains of the album’s vibe. “I also wanted it to have elements of Americana, country and roots.”

For Samantha, the recording sessions proved just as rewarding as the writing “I had a dream team of musicians and special guests,” she recalls. “And Dockside Studios quickly became one of my favorite places on earth.”

It hasn’t been that long since a teenaged Samantha first started showing up at her local Kansas City blues club, Knuckleheads Saloon, and began soaking up the sounds of visiting modern blues guitar masters like Mike Zito and Tab Benoit, then going back to ‘80s heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan and following the lineage to the pre-war Delta masters.

By the age of 18, Samantha had settled on a searing lead guitar style that expressed her own voice rather than mimicking clichéd blues licks note-for-note. She quickly broke into a dues-paying period on the Kansas City jam circuit: an apprenticeship at the sharp end that tightened her musical chops, polished her stagecraft and gave her the grit to overcome occasional skepticism about her age, hair tone and gender.

“I always hated the idea of the gimmick,” she told Premier Guitar. “People come out just because you are a girl, but then you have so much more to prove once you get them in the door.”

And Samantha has delivered on that promise, as evidenced by one listen to the new recording.

“I really got to do exactly what I wanted to do on Black Wind Howlin’,” she says, “and I’m incredibly proud of it.”

Samantha will support the release of her new album with constant touring. For more information on the artist, visit www.samanthafish.com and www.rufrecords.de.