Mike Zito is dependable. If you’re looking for searing, intense blues-rock guitar solos, he’s definitely your guy.
Zito, a St. Louis native now based in Beaumont, Texas, is a self-taught guitar player whose career, until recent years, was largely a do-it-yourself project. He self-released several albums, including Superman, America’s Most Wanted and Slow It Down, before gaining exposure to a wider audience in 2008 with the breakout Today. That was followed by the well-received Pearl River and Greyhound, released by Eclecto in 2009 and 2011 his song “Pearl River”, co-written by Cyril Neville, won the Blues Music Award for Song of the Year in 2010. Then in 2011, Zito and Neville joined with Devon Allman to form Royal Southern Brotherhood and released that band’s eponymous debut album in 2012. In 2013, Zito left the Brotherhood because he said the one-time side project had grown so big it diverted his attention from the blues-country fusion sound he was trying to develop on his own. Some of his album highlights include Gone to Texas from 2013 and Keep Coming Back from 2015, both recorded with his band The Wheel, and Blues for the Southside an excellent live album recorded in his native St. Louis 2021. Last year, Zito teamed up with fellow guitar-slinger Albert Castiglia and released studio and live “Blood Brothers” collaborations.
With Life is Hard, Zito is back to the basic blues-rock formula that has made him successful. Like any Zito album, there are some real crowd-pleasers in the collection. The opener, “Lonely Man,” by Milton Campbell and Bob Lyons, is a hard-driving rocker; Fred James’ “Life is Hard” is a slow-cooker that shows off Zito’s soulful voice; and his cover of the Stevie Wonder/Calvin Hardaway classic “Have a Talk with God” is compelling. Zito’s earnest “Forever My Love” is full of yearning and displays both his vocal skills and guitar mastery; and his surprising cover of The Guess Who classic, “These Eyes,” provides a slower way station among the blues-rockers on the album, and his cover of Tab Benoit’s “Darkness” sizzles. The album wraps up with Reverend Gary Davis’s rhythmic “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.”
Joining Zito on the album were Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith on guitars, Reese Wynans on keyboards, Calvin turner on bass, Lemar Carter on drums. Other contributions were made by Paulie Cerra on saxophone, Jennifer Kumma and Anna Spina on french horns, and vocalists Jade Macrae, Dannielle Deandrea and Steve Ray Ladson.
About the author: Bill Wilcox is a roots music enthusiast recently relocated from the Washington, DC area to Philadelphia, PA and back again.