Young, brash and reckless might not be a prescription for sustainable living but it’s the right combustible mixture to make a potent blues-rock record. Back in ’98, the then-St. Louis based guitar slinger and vocalist Mike Zito was all of that and he channeled his unbound energy into an all-day recording session after an all-nighter to make a boisterous record in the basement of a house on the outskirts of town. If that’s not how the blues is made, I don’t know what is.
Blue Room is the debut that resulted and Zito’s current label Ruf Records has recently remastered and reissued this hard-to-find gem. Heading up a combustible trio that had Doug Byrkit on bass and Brian Sielie on drums, this was Zito’s first step away from being just another blues covers act and into an original force in American electric blues.
The gusto captured on that day is contagious: Zito gets your butt shaking with funky numbers like “Hollywood,” “It’s All Good” and the instrumental SRV shuffle “Gravy Jam.” The gritty riffing on “Pull The Trigger” that rides hard on Byrkit’s sturdy bass follows that same, winning handmade formula that’s also a trademark for Tab Benoit, and his solo lines are rocket-fueled.
“Lovering” is a low down dirty slow blues, stoked up by Zito’s snarling vocal, sneering “lemme lick something for ya!” before launching into a five-alarm fire guitar frenzy. And even back then, Zito had enough sophistication to tastefully insert jazzy chords into blues, as he does so well for “Ways About You” and “Lightening Bug.”
Those who have a coveted original copy of Blue Room might still be tempted by this reissue, because Ruf has offered a bonus in the form of an earlier cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” which Zito also recorded for America’s Most Wanted a few years later. The heavy investment of passion he had put into his own songs carries over to this one, starting with a smoky vibe and building up to a rousing crescendo.
A far cry from First Class Life — except that the instrumental backing tracks were recorded in a single day for both albums — Blue Room is Mike Zito at his rawest and rowdiest. I like the spot he’s ended up in, but the spot where he started out has its own undeniable magic.
