Mike Zito

Quarantine Blues

Gulf Coast Records

Over the year’s guitarist/vocalist Mike Zito has become a true force in the blues world. He won his first Blues Music Award in 2010 for “Song of the Year”; for the title track off his Eclecto Groove album “Pearl River” co-written with Cyril Neville. He formed “The Royal Southern Brotherhood” with Neville and Devon Allman and received a second BMA for their 2014 DVD “Songs from The Road”. He won his third BMA in 2018 as he was named the “Blues Rock Artist of the Year”. Overall Zito has sixteen albums and twelve nominations. In 2018 he formed Gulf Coast Records with his partner Guy Hale.

Zito explains how this new album came to be. “While flying home from Europe after all of our tours being cancelled, I decided the band and myself would record a free album for our fans. Individually we have been quarantined for 14 days and this idea of writing, producing and releasing an album in the 14-day period seemed like quite an effort and a distraction for us. In return fans around the world contributed to our Gofundme and it has been an amazingly rewarding experience. I hope our fans enjoy the album and the music we have written.”

Zito opens this eleven track recording with the Bruce Springsteen inspired rockin’ anthem “Don’t Let The World Get You Down”. “Don’t Touch Me” written with Traci Guns is about social distancing. The title track “Quarantine Blues” is about feeling isolated. “After The Storm” is a song of resilience.  All of the songwriting shows the lyrical side of Zito. “I followed no rules, I wrote what I was feeling regardless of style or genre and used my feelings of fear, hope, love and rebelliousness to fuel my creativity”.

This timely album features some of Zito’s best songwriting. He helps us get through the dog days of the pandemic with an eye on the brighter days that lay ahead. “Quarantine Blues” is available on Sound Cloud and can be streamed or downloaded.

Richard Ludmerer