Mike Zito – Life Is Hard
Mike Zito – Life Is Hard
Format: CD
Label: Gulf Coast Records
Release: 2024
Release date: February 23, 2024
Gulf Coast Records announces a February 23, 2024, release date for the new disc from multi-Blues Music Award-winner Mike Zito, ‘Life Is Hard’
Zito recorded the new album in September at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood, California, with Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith producing. Both Bonamassa and Smith were involved in the production of ‘Blood Brothers,’ the critically-acclaimed album Zito recorded with fellow label guitarist Albert Castiglia, which topped both the Billboard and iTunes blues charts after its release in March, 2023. Mike’s first single, “Life is Hard,” the album’s title track, will drop on January 12th.
“Life Is Hard is a complete work of art for me,” says Mike Zito about the new disc. “I believe this is the best album I’ve ever made in my life. My wife Laura and I planned this idea of pouring my heart out in music after her death from cancer. Joe, Josh and the incredible musicians were fully aware of the task at hand. They brought a lot of emotion to the music. I am so proud of this album and I know Laura would be proud as well.”
The even-dozen tracks on Life Is Hard include not only several Mike Zito originals, but also his takes on a wide variety of blues songs written by such contemporaries as Tinsley Ellis, Walter Trout, Tab Benoit and Fred James.
Sprinkled in are covers from a diverse assortment of blues/roots music icons, including Little Milton (“Lonely Man”), Stevie Wonder (“Have a Talk with God”) and Reverend Gary Davis (“Death Don’t Have No Mercy”), plus the outside-the-box blues-worthy rendering of the Guess Who classic, “These Eyes.”
Website: https://www.mikezito.com/
Tracks:
01. Lonely Man – Milton Campbell, Bob Lyons
02. Life Is Hard – Fred James
03. Have a Talk with God – Calvin Hardaway, Stevie Wonder
04. Forever My Love – Mike Zito
05. No One to Talk to (But the Blues) – George Sherry, Wayne P Walker
06. Dying to Do Wrong – Tinsley Ellis
07. These Eyes – Randall Charles Bachman, Burton Cummings
07. Darkness – Tab Benoit
08. Without Loving You – Mike Zito
09. Nobody Moves Me Like You Do – Walter Trout
10. Death Don’t Have No Mercy – Gary Davis
11. Forever My Love (radio edit) – Mike Zito
Mike Zito – Guitar and Vocals
Joe Bonamassa – Additional Guitar
Josh Smith – Additional Guitar
Reese Wynans – Keyboards
Calvin Turner – Bass
Lemar Carter – Drums
Paulie Cerra – Saxophone on “Lonely Man”
Jennifer Kumma and Anna Spina – French Horn on “Forever My Love” and “These Eyes”
Jade Macrae – Background Vocals
Dannielle Deandrea – Background Vocals
Steve Ray Ladson – Background Vocals on “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”
French Horn Arrangements by Calvin Turner