'Death Wish Blues' tour brings Jesse Dayton and Samantha Fish to Fort Smith July 21

The rollicking rockabilly licks of Jesse Dayton, once the front man of band the Road Kings, who then blazed into a modern Texas outlaw country legend, has paired with a guitar-slinging, blonde bombshell named Samantha Fish, and it's created a new blues explosion.

"Death Wish Blues" debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues album charts in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was at #9 Thursday, July 20 on the chart. And the dynamic duo of blues is coming to TempleLive July 21.

In a telephone interview Monday, just three nights after playing in Paris, France, Dayton talked about the success of the "Death Wish Blues" album sales. The album was recorded at Applehead Recording & Production studio in Woodstock, New York.

"It's all happened really quickly. It's all happened in a little less than a year and the record is already out," Dayton said

Dayton and Fish play TempleLive, 200 N. 11th in Fort Smith, Friday, July 21.

Texas rock and country meets Kansas City blues

Dayton, grew up in Beaumont, Texas. His father went to high school with country music legend George Jones. It was Dayton's rockabilly band the Road Kings that hit the clubs across the country with a high-energy, punk-style of roots rock before Dayton went solo in the mid-1990s. He met blues singer and guitarist Fish in 2011 when she opened for him at Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, her hometown.

"I heard her playing and immediately thought to myself, 'Well something is definitely going to happen for her' because she's a monster guitar player," Dayton said.

In 2022 Dayton was playing in New Orleans when she walked up to him with a record proposal. He explained how it happened.

"She said, 'Hey do you want to go to New York and make a record with the John Spencer Blues Explosion?' And I was like, 'Yea, I do, let's do it.' "

Dayton and Fish collaborated on songs and went to Woodstock, New York, and recorded the record produced by John Spencer.

The album's appeal is crossing over into other genres.

"It's a lot of fun, " Dayton said.

The album's debut at No. 1 is a first for Dayton, but it is no game-changer he said.

"It's nice. It's appreciated. It doesn't really change how I feel about everything," Dayton said. "It's nice to be acknowledged and it's great that we sold enough records."

"It's pretty awesome. We're super excited about it," Dayton said.

The Road Kings days

In the early 1990s, Dayton was part of a the three-piece roots rock that meshed rockabilly, deep blues, swing, jump blues, a real gumbo of styles and influences.

"But we always had a kind of punk energy," Dayton said in a recent telephone interview. "It could have been anything. It could have been like, one of our songs, or it could have been a Gene Vincent song or a song by the Clash, or one of our songs."

The song, "Should'a, Could'a, Would'a" was a Road Kings original, Dayton recalled. Dayton is known for a song that praises the late George Jones called, "Possum Ran Over My Grave."

"I'm a real gumbo man. I'm from Beaumont, Texas, on the Louisiana border so I grew up listening to blues, zydeco, a lot of honky-tonk, old-school country music. My dad went to high school with George Jones. And you know, of course, rock 'n' roll. I was listening to everything else everyone was listening to on the radio from the Stones to whatever."

TempleLive show July 21

It will be a "high-energy show" when Dayton and Fish bring the "Death Wish Tour," to Fort Smith hit the TempleLive stage, July 21, Dayton said. Dayton talked about the tour three days after playing Le Bataclan in Paris, France.

"It's an electric guitar show, it's all based around me and Samantha swapping leads and swapping vocals you know, when I sing lead she plays lead guitar, when she sings I play lead guitar. We play together. We do every song off the record," Dayton said.

"It's the most exciting show that I've been involved in in a long time," he said.

Dayton said he is a musician who often has a number of "irons in the fire," such as another project he is working on with Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon Jennings. That project will be released next year.

First it is all about the "Death Wish Blues" wave he is riding.

"We're just all about this show and all about this record (Death Wish Blues) right now," Dayton said. "We're just really focused on this record right now."

To find out more about how to get tickets, call TempleLive at 1-800-515-2171.

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: 'Death Wish Blues' tour coming to Fort Smith features a dynamic duo