LOVE comes to town

G. Love makes a return to Philly offering a serving of Lemonade

By Ryan Alan

Philly EDGE Correspondent

Since he was in junior high school, G. Love says he just wanted to entertain at the party.

Nothing’s changed; it’s just a bigger party now.

Even G. (a.k.a Garrett Dutton) seems surprised.

“My career’s been crazy man,” says one of Philly’s favorite musical sons. “We dropped our first record in ’94 and now it’s ’06 and things are growing for us.”

To be sure, it’s been a slow growth, he acknowledges, but at least it’s forward motion.   “If there is a mountaintop, we feel like we are climbing very slowly to get to it. But at least we are still climbing.   Some have already reached the top and have fallen off. We play with great musicians and we’ve put out our seventh record.”

As a person, and as a musician, G. Love says he feels “more complete than ever before.”

Along the way, especially after touring a year and a half, as he has just done, the challenge is to “keep it fresh for yourself and for listeners,” he suggests.  One way to do that, he says, is to go back to basics and records that inspired you originally, and find rejuvenation in revisiting, to a degree, the past.

He’ll be doing that in back-to-back nights at the Electric Factory this Friday and Saturday, Nov. 24-25.

“We’ve just souped up the band. We’re rolling’ as a four-piece now,” he says, and that could expand to a five-piece.  It’s an interesting change, he says, because the trio has been a special sound to him.

“It’s cool. I’ve been doing this so long and honing my craft,” he says.  G says he always puts the same energy and soul into it. “I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. What it’s all about is continuing growing personally and musically and learning new stuff.”

Exhibit A: The group’s new, CD, Lemonade.

“It’s very exciting with a lot of special guests,” he says. Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Donavon Frankenreiter, Jasper, Los Lobos’ Dave Hildalgo, Blackalicious, Marc Broussard and Tristan Prettyman are among them. Though there are collaborations, this is not a collaborative record, he explains.  It was produced and engineered at Philadelphonic Studios by Chris DiBeneditto.

He believes the CD will surprise some people.

“Definitely. We wanted to try to continue the vibe of Hustle. I think (Lemonade) is very much a G. Love record, a bigger sound than our last record, production-wise.”

G. still likes to think of his group’s sound as “Hip-hop blues.”  That’s especially so with this record and its funkiness, he says.

“We really try to keep alive the spirit of all the musicians who have influenced us: Bob Dylan and a lot of the old blues guys, and a lot of the old folk guys. We keep that kind of performance fire.”

G. believes the greatest gift with which he has been blessed is the fact that he loves to play music and, more than that, play for people.

“I love to get on stage and play my music in front of people,” he says.

Sometimes, while waiting to go onstage, he has to overcome nervousness.

“Often, before I go on, I have no idea how I’m going to give the people what they want. Then, when I’m onstage, something comes up from the inside. It’s like you blast off. “You find that… five minutes earlier you didn’t know where it was. And all of a sudden there’s the spirit and light of love.”

If he’s having a good night on stage, there’s nothing quite like it, G says.

“Sometimes you get up there, guitar in hand, you know you can’t do any wrong. That’s a good feeling, because so many things in life, you know, you mess up.”

He has seen his music evolve in some ways, from a folk singer to a rock’n’roller, “at least like a hip-hop, rock’n’roller.”

“I’ve evolved from a solely acoustic player into a pretty proficient acoustic and electric player,” G. says.

The strength that he or any artist needs to strive for, he believes, is “just being able to connect.”

First it is necessary to make a connection with yourself, based on “what you are feeling and what is going on inside,” he says.  “That energy coming out of you has to connect with people. That’s what it’s all about. A million people can play guitar or sing better than me. It’s not what it’s about. In a way, music is such an ethereal thing, something you just have to feel as a listener and player. I’ve been blessed with being able to feel it.”

At one time, he and his band had to struggle to prove they were a legitimate entity, G. says.

“We were three white boys playing blues and hip-hop and we had to prove we were the real deal and not just a fluke with a couple funny hit songs. Now we’ve proven ourselves.”

He loves to see fans of different genres embrace the tasty recipe of G. Love and Special Sauce.

“It’s cool when I can turn a young kid on to the blues; and I can turn a suburban white lady on to hip-hop, and she says, ‘I don’t like rap, but I love the way you rap.’  And I love to show hip-hop kids where a lot of that music came from, like the Meters. It’s a good feeling to open ears.”

The live show has a communal feeling, he suggests.

“It’s the kind (of show) where you can come around and have a good time and hear some funky, soulful music. There’s a lot of crowd interaction, not forced interaction. I do ask them to play with me sometimes, but I keep that to a minimum.”

There is always some kind of feeling or message underneath his songs, even the humorous ones, he says. But he tries not to be too overt about it.

G. once said he and his group “are just taking people out of their worries and taking them away.”

That still applies.

“It’s definitely a big part of what we do, take them away from their worries,” he says. “We play every night, but most people work all week, and they work hard for their money. It’s a big honor when they use their money and their free time and choose to spend it with us.

“My job is to take people away from their daily grind, and whatever could be going wrong for them in their life, and help them forget about it for awhile, and magnify what is good.” 

G. Love and Special Sauce

Fri. and Sat. Nov. 24 and 25, 8:30 p.m.

Electric Factory (7^th and Willow Sts, Philadelphia; 610.784.5400)

Tickets: $25