Mike Zito & Albert Castiglia

Blood Brothers Live in Canada

Gulf Coast Records

Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia’s Blood Brothers Live in Canada feaqtures ten of the eleven songs on their award-winning Blood Brothers studio album released earlier this year. But in no way is this a superfluous move. Zito and Castiglia’s sweltering blues/rock performances were made to be played live, and the ideally matched pair of singer-guitarists and their band toured the Blood Brothers album like warriors. Two shows in May at Blue Frog Studios, a live audience recording theatre in White Rock, British Columbia, apparently stood out. Castiglia describes them: “The perfect room, perfect acoustics, an amazing audience, and incendiary playing by everyone in the band. It had to be shared with the world.”

Blood Brothers was produced in Louisiana by fellow blues/rock guitarists Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith. It hit like a sledgehammer dipped in a swamp. The Live in Canada takes were put together by Zito and make as deep an impression by showcasing the band—Zito and Castiglia on guitars and vocals, with Douglas Byrkit on bass, Matthew Johnson and Ephraim Lowell on drums and percussion, and Lewis Stephens on piano and organ—proving themselves, and the quality of the material, in the moment, not augmented by horns or guests as they were on the studio recordings. Castiglia’s observations are spot on.

Zito’s “Hey Sweet Mama” fires up the set, establishing a loose, celebratory tone. A romp through Tinsley Ellis’s “Tooth and Nail” follows, the band grinding hard, reaching for, and achieving an early pinnacle. Castiglia sings that freewheeling blues in a resolute growl not unlike Ellis’s own, surely thrilling the author as much as he did the audience. He proves it again during his own “A Thousand Heartaches,” having, as he tells the crowd, “Dug down deep” in writing the song. His tale of personal grief appeals widely through stretched out, honest blues. They brand John Hiatt’s rocker, “My Business” as their own in a rubbery barrage accentuating the band’s zesty rhythms, the slicing guitars, and Zito’s expressive, Hiatt-like sneer in one big punch. The inclusion of Zito’s “Gone to Texas,” the title song to his 2013 solo album, makes a statement, offering up sprawling pride. Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” provides a raging finale after it, breaking down into a snippet of The Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts classic, “Jessica,” for a breather.

Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia’s touchstones are many, and they melded them into thrilling entertainment on Blood Brothers Live in Canada..

Tom Clarke for MAS

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