Mike Zito Life Is Hard

October 17, 2024

Mike Zito

Life Is Hard

Gulf Coast Records

Mike Zito worked ten years at a downtown St. Louis guitar shop where an older employee taught him an appreciation for the music of The Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, and B.B. King. His independently produced debut album “Blue Room” was released in 1997. Zito followed up with 1999’s “America Most Wanted”; 2004’s “Slow It Down”; and 2006’s “Superman”. Zito acknowledges that there were “bumps in the road”, that he previously had bouts with alcoholism. Many of his songs deal with redemption and he credits much of his recovery to meeting his wife.

Zito came to the attention of Delta Groove’s Randy Chortkoff who was just starting the Eclecto Groove label. Zito’s first internationally disctributed album “Today” was released in 2008. The follow up album “Pearl River” included the title track co-written with Cyril Neville and it resulted in Zito winning his first Blues Music Award as “Song of The Year”.

Zito, Neville, and Devon Allman co-founded “The Royal Southern Brotherhood” in 2012; and together they released two studio albums and one live recording, resulting in another Blues Music Award. In 2013 Zito formed a new band “The Wheel”, on the Ruf Records label. In 2014 Zito announced he would leave RSB in order to tour with his own band.

This new album “Life Is Hard” was recorded at Sunset Sound, in Los Angeles, with some additional recording completed in Nashville. The album is produced by guitarists Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith, and they are featured throughout the album playing alongside Zito. Other musicians include Paulie Cerra, saxophone; Reese Wynans, keyboards; and the rhythm section of Calvin Turner, bass; and Lemar Carter, drums. The title track is beautifully sung by Zito, “this old world is a jungle, life is hard, and then you die”. “Have A Talk With God” includes backing vocalists Dannielle Deandrea and Jade MacRae, “when you feel your life is too hard, have a talk with god”.

“Forever My Love” features some ferocious guitar as Jennifer Kumma and Ana Spina both play the French Horn, “I will always be with you, I will always be true”. “No One To Talk To (But The Blues)” was written by Troy Martin and Wayne Paul Walker and a 1957 country song sung by Lefty Frizzell. “Dying To Do Wrong” features Wynans on the Hammond B-3 as Zito sings “stay away from gin mill love…trying to get it right, dying to do wrong”. “These Eyes” was a 1969 hit for The Guess Who?, perfromed as a slow shuffle it once again includes the French Horns as Zito croons “the hurtin’s on me yeah, I will never be free, you gave a promise to me, and you broke it, these eyes are cryin'”.

“Darkness”, “please forgive me” as Carter beats out the sad dirge. “Without Loving You”, tell me how long I’m gonna live, without loving you”. On the slow boiling “Nobody Moves Me Like You Do” Zito belts “you belong to me, and I belong to you…but when I look into your eyes, nobody moves me like you do”; as the trio of guitarists absolutely shred it. On the gospel styled closer written by Dean Bowman, Zito chants “in this land, I come to your house, look into your bed, and one of your family is gone”.

Zito won an additional Blues Music Award in 2018; two more in 2021; another in 2022, and still another in 2023 for Blood Brothers. With eight BMA’s to date, Zito is now a perennial. He broke the glass ceiling and the sky’s the limit.

Richard Ludmerer
Contributing Editor/Making A Scene

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