Blues musician's latest album was shaped by his coping with his wife's death

We know the blues is not just about feeling bad, but about rising above hard times, celebrating tenacity and the life force that keeps us going, hopefully to redemption and some measure of prevailing. The blues brings relief, perhaps catharsis, and a certain joy in realizing we’re all in this together.

Mike Zito’s new album, “Life Is Hard” released on Gulf Coast Records on Feb. 23, embodies all of that, and in the most acute manner. It’s a work he first envisioned as he was dealing with his wife’s terminal cancer diagnosis, and Laura Zito not only encouraged the project, she helped him plan it, before she died last July 31. It is brilliant piece of work, sobering and contemplative, as it looks at love and loss, good times and bad, but also triumphant in the way it emphasizes appreciating special moments and treasured people.

Zito is in the area this weekend, with a Friday night show at The Music Room in West Yarmouth, and a Saturday show at the Spire Center in Plymouth. (The Music Room show begins at 7 p.m. Friday, and tickets are scaled from $45-$100. Check musicroomcapecod.com for more information. The Spire Center show on Saturday begins at 8 p.m., with tickets priced $26.10-$29, available at the venue at 25½ Court St. in downtown Plymouth, and on the website spirecenter.org. Call 508-746-4488 for more info.)

Wife's death impacted album

The centerpiece of the new album is Zito’s song “Forever My Love,” a powerful ballad where the singer’s vocal approaches operatic intensity, and his guitar solo is heartbreakingly poignant. It was a song he began one morning at the breakfast table, and with Laura’s prodding, continued to expand and refine as weeks went by. By last summer, Zito had to step away from touring and spend time at home with his wife and their children, as she entered hospice.

Coming up: As the weather warms, the concert scene is heating up. Start planning your weekend now

But Laura Zito had made sure he was determined to record the album once her struggle was over, and sessions took place in September in Los Angeles. Zito had enlisted fellow guitarist Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith to produce the album, since he’d loved their work on the debut album for The Blood Brothers, the blues group he founded with fellow guitar giant Albert Castiglia. Zito has produced numerous albums himself, so his choosing the duo was a notable step.

“I didn’t want to do anything but play guitar and sing,” said Zito recently, just before his current national, 25-date tour began in Hagerstown, Maryland. “We used Joe’s band, and we had been talking about this for seven or eight months beforehand. After Laura passed, I talked to Joe the next week, and we all had about 20 songs on a potential list. We spent August finalizing the sequence and songs we wanted to include.”

Zito had decided to use songs that fit into the general theme, as embodied in the title cut, a Fred James tune made famous by Johnny Winter. But he also didn’t want to make a record that was downbeat. The album opens with Little Milton’s lively rocker “Lonely Man,” and after a gritty reading of the title cut, jumps into a brightly swinging take on Stevie Wonder’s “Have a Talk with God.” There are songs from some of Zito’s friends and fellow blues stars, like Tinsley Ellis, and Walter Trout, and a tune from Tab Benoit he’d always liked, (“Darkness,”) that Benoit confessed was written after Benoit’s brother died.

An unexpected choice

Perhaps the most unexpected song choice is The Guess Who classic “These Eyes.” But in truth much of today’s so-called blues is what most of us would call rock ‘n’ roll, and Zito’s music, as a whole, is a prime example. But in this case, he took the old rock hit and added some steamy R&B flavor, as if someone like Bobby "Blue" Bland were singing it instead of Burton Cummings.

“We put our heads together and tried to find songs that tied together with the story,” Zito explained. “It had to be broader than ‘Life Is Hard,’ and we all lose people. It would be hard to make it all about that, and everything can’t be slow and sad. We looked for different grooves, and we liked that Stevie Wonder song for the positive, upbeat lyrical content. Josh Smith brought that one in. Joe brought in “No One to Talk To (But the Blues)” and it all came together musically.”

“These Eyes’ was another Josh Smith suggestion,” Zito added. “Obviously, I grew up in St. Louis on rock ‘n’ roll and knew The Guess Who, and my first thought was ‘no way – it’s way too hard to sing.’ But Josh had an idea to do it a different way. Up to the day we did it, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but now it is probably my favorite tune on the record.”

Another inspired choice was doing old-time acoustic bluesman Reverend Gary Davis’ “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” and enhancing it with a gospel choir.

“I had that one in mind all the time, but I let them produce that one,” said Zito. “I just wanted to be an artist and sing and play. The young man, Steve Ray Ladson, who did the vocal arrangement works with the Blind Boys of Alabama, and it turned out wonderfully. It was obvious that would end the album.”

New music fuels shows

As significant a work as the album is, how does it translate to performing? How many of the new album’s tunes does Zito and his band perform, and how much does he explain the music’s theme?

“I’m thinking we’ll play seven of the songs from the new album in our shows,” said Zito. “Along with that, I have more than enough music in my life, with 20-something albums at this point. These shows will not all be about that story, but when I do “Forever My Love’ I will of course explain that one is about my wife, Laura. I appreciate that everyone may not know the story, but at the same time we want to make this a good night out. I’m very conscious that we make this a night of entertainment, and it is very emphatically NOT a funeral. I will tell that story for that song, there’ll be that moment, and we’ll move on, and what I’m doing up there on stage is entertaining and I know that’s the main thing.”

Zito has had a devoted local fan base in the Northeast, particularly in these parts, since he played The Marshfield Fair’s North River Blues Festival a decade ago with The Royal Southern Brotherhood – the band he founded with Cyril Neville and Devon Allman. He has played the Narrows Center in Fall River – with both his band and Blood Brothers – and will be making his third visit to the Music Room, but this is his first Spire Center appearance.

Record label takes off

It has been a noteworthy year for Gulf Coast Records, the label Zito founded with a British businessman/fan, as they’ve released several standout records, including the comeback album for Lexington’s Monster Mike Welch. Coming up soon (March 8) is an album from The Wicked Lo Down, which features New Hampshire’s Nick David, well known around here as leader of the old Mr. Nick and The Dirty Tricks.

“Obviously, I had no idea the label would do so well,” Zito said with a laugh. “Monster Mike made what I considered a great record and it’s been wonderful to see him do so well. I’ve known Nick was super talented for years, and we’re hoping this record gets him some national recognition. I was inspired by Tom Ruf (of Ruf Records) and Bruce Iglauer (founder of Alligator Records), and we just wanted to help other artists like us get their work out there. We’re very proud of what the label has become.”

Wicklund headlines Brighton Music Hall

Last weekend, Boston hosted potentially one of the next big music stars as South Carolina’s Hannah Wicklund headlined Brighton Music Hall on Friday night. Wicklund has been performing in public since she was 16, so even at 27 she’s a real veteran, and it showed during her 80-minute show, which included Joni Mitchell-like ballads, and rip-roaring guitar storms that might remind you of Jimi Hendrix. Wicklund can surely play guitar, and her quartet is a potent force. She opened with a blazing, semi-psychedelic charge through “Hell in the Hallway,” setting the stage for a night where her dynamics were certainly stunning. Wicklund writes compelling lyrics, but one problem Friday was simply that her vocals were a bit low in the soundmix, so it wasn’t always easy to understand those words. That was especially obvious on her solo ballad “Songbird Sing,” which has lines like “All you ever wanted was someone to hold, not just handle you.” But the title cut from her new album, “The Prize,” which she played solo at the piano, was riveting folk-rock, evoking those Joni comparisons with tart lyrics like “I had to make room in my life for the woman I wanted to be.”

But when the band came back it was back to serious rockin’, and “Can’t Get Enough” had the kind of grit that could’ve made it fit with Z.Z. Top’s songbook. The spooky, lost-love tune “Dark Passenger” went from quiet verses to roaring choruses, while “Sun to Sun” added some funky undertones. Wicklund capped off the night with a rousing blast through “Bomb Through the Breeze,” a storm of guitar pyrotechnics and effects that left the crowd of about 175 cheering loudly. Wicklund is immensely talented, her songwriting is simple and direct, and her stage presence is well honed, so it’s a good bet she’ll be back in the Boston area soon. Wicklund also does all her own artwork, and music fan Joanne Cullen, of Plymouth, ended up buying three of her remarkable prints after the show.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Mike Zito to perform at Spire Center in Plymouth this weekend