Mike Zito’s blues come tough

Mike Cote //August 17, 2011//

Mike Zito’s blues come tough

Mike Cote //August 17, 2011//

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MIKE ZITO Greyhound (Electo Groove)

Mike Zito knows how to tell tough tales. On Greyhound, the singer and guitarist inhabits that place where blues and rock drive tales of hard-won wisdom and a life lived out on hardscrabble roads. His raspy voice has a bit of that lived-in roughness that recalls Steve Earle and Bob Seger and the
sense of purpose that defines the best work of those artists.

On “Roll On,” Zito has no more of a message than to keep keeping on, and he lets his guitar work do plenty of the talking between verses told from the
perspective of someone who knows the trouble he causes doesn’t allow him to stay in one place for too long. The title track has that same kind of
yearning, the hope that something better is out there if you can just get out on the road and find it.

On “Show me the Way,” written with guest guitarist and singer Anders Osborne, Zito flashes a bit of Hendrix, not so much in the dazzle of his fretwork as in the song’s overall groove and the soulfulness of his singing.

Mike Zito performs tonight at The Buffalo Rose in Golden; on Thursday at Little Bear Saloon in Evergreen and Friday and Saturday at the Ameristar Casino in Black Hawk.

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