Mike Zito – Life Is Hard
Combining a Paul Butterfield Blues Band gusto with Howlin’ Wolf singing lessons in rough-hewn grit, Mike Zito unleashes his vocals & guitar with incendiary power. The blues is far from dead when people like this are still plying the trade. Despite being skillful it retains the necessary pungency of genuine bluesy moisture much the same as some cheese with mold tastes so strong & so good.
This isn’t Carnegie Hall blues with cognac, polished shoes & tuxedos — this is juke joint smoke & Old Crow whiskey in a dalliance with the devil’s jambalaya & Joe Bonamassa (guitar) & Josh Smith’s (guitar) production prowess.
Mike Zito follows a weathered frail blues map with coordinates his instincts shape on the exceptional Life Is Hard (Gulf Coast Records/Drops Feb. 23/50:00) that offers 12 choice swings at the blues chin. He incorporates soulful backup singers & stinging guitars with expressive lines & manages it in an age-old genre to still recreate originality & creativity.
This is a musical elixir for any blues aficionado who is weary of the too-perfect hairdo & polished nails of many blues performers. “Lonely Man,” & “Life Is Hard,” unravel like barbed wire across a floor where barefoot angels will tread & dance. Too poetic? Nah. It’s just the feelings that run through my mind. I sometimes use the blues the way Jack Kerouac used jazz when writing his novels.
Blues has a funny way of reinventing itself every few decades, but the necessary spice is in its rawness & many excellent players do forget that pinch. It’s too clean, too fast, too antiseptic when the songs should be also soulful, lived in & experienced.
“Have a Talk With God,” & the terrific Rev. Gary Davis’s “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” is a mix of spiritual blues – not an easy road to negotiate but rewarding. He does have this quality on some songs with gospel-tinged fills. The late Roy Buchanan had invoked that cry from his strings (“The Messiah Will Come Again”). It’s simply inspiration & Zito has a surplus. Elevated somewhat from just mere blues this is where the traditional pieces are more easily interpreted as a classical American form. Sample “Without Loving You.”
To add a little intensity Mike perpetuates a plodding haunting sound on Tinsley Ellis’ “Dying To Do Wrong,” with backup voices from another astral plane. It’s superb.
Highlights – “Lonely Man,” “Life Is Hard,” “Have a Talk With God,” “Forever My Love,” “Dying To Do Wrong,” “Darkness,” “Without Loving You” & “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.”
Musicians – Reese Wynans (keys), Calvin Turner (bass/French horn arrangement), Lemar Carter (drums), Paulie Cerra (sax), Jennifer Kumma & Anna Spina (French horns), Jade Macrea, Dannielle Deandrea & Steve Ray Ladson (bgvs).
Color image courtesy of Norma Touchette/Mark Pucci Media. Recorded in L.A. & Nashville. CD @ Amazon + https://www.mikezito.com/
