Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The people behind Ruf Records really have got to the very root of being able to capture the love of live music down to a tee. Not just on one artist, but on a collection of musicians who exemplify the point of seeing a band or solo artist live, striding the stage like ancient Athenian warriors ready to pounce on the admiration of the crowd with a small tickle of the guitar. Unlike ancient Athenians’ war like efforts, no blood is shed from the 21st Century axe but in the hands of Mike Zito and the Wheel, what is shed, what is let loose, is inhibition and what is gained is an emotional connection. In Songs From The Road, that connection is bought straight into the most inaccessible of arenas, that of the front room or dull long journey in which music is the only escape.
Like other albums in the Songs From The Road series, what the listener finds is a tantalising trail in which to savour travelling, the thoughts of the travel journal placed into a set of songs in which the musician has laboured within, mulled over and in many cases sweated blood, tears. In addition, the very odd moment of dismay as they try to find exactly the right combination in which to delight the paying crowd and those who because of distance, finance or means find difficult to attend.
Mike Zito and the Wheel’s foray into the recorded live performance is no exception, it represents the character that is Mike Zito and the exceptional ensemble that surrounds him, in the same way that the Royal Southern Brotherhood have seemingly perfected, are able to pull and push each other as if giving the audience an insight into the inner workings of the Universe. In songs such Greyhound, Pearl River, Hell On Me, the brilliant Dirty Blonde and Subtraction Blues, the sense of history digging away at the Universe’s equilibrium is palpable. It suffocates the life out of the haphazard, random nature of what goes on around every living being or burning atom and replaces it with an order, a musical order of excellent repute.
For the man who grew up in St. Louis and who, by his own admission, was not on the right path until situations provided him with a set of allies to take him by the hand and give him that musical focus in which fans have revelled. Songs From The Road provides, not just a musical piece of history worth having but an invaluable insight into one of America’s modern day greats.
Ian D. Hall