Mike Zito

Born in St. Louis (Missouri) in 1970, Mike Zito early established roots in electric blues and Southern rock that have shaped his entire career. After gigs in local clubs and several self‑releases, including Blue Room (1998), he drew wider attention with America’s Most Wanted (2001) and Slow It Down (2004), where a blend of blues, rock, soul and Americana was already emerging. Signing to the Eclecto Groove label marked a new phase with Today (2008) and especially Pearl River (2009), recorded with Cyril Neville and awarded a Blues Music Award in 2010. Zito followed with Greyhound (2011) and Gone to Texas (2013), while in 2010 he co‑founded the group Royal Southern Brotherhood alongside, among others, Devon Allman and Cyril Neville — a collective focused on a bluesy rock sound that he left in 2014 to return to his solo work. Working within a modern blues‑rock aesthetic, he released Keep Coming Back (2015), Make Blues Not War (2016), First Class Life (2018) and Rock ’N’ Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry (2019), followed by Quarantine Blues (2020), Resurrection (2021), the live Blues for the Southside (2022) and Life Is Hard (2023). A co‑founder of the Gulf Coast Records label in 2018, Mike Zito alternates tours in the United States and Europe with production work, maintaining a style centered on direct vocals, energetic blues‑rock guitar and autobiographical songwriting.