“It’s really the album that propelled our whole trajectory of my career and life,” says Dutton via phone from Cape Cod, where he was spending a “daddy day” with his two kids. G. Love & Special Sauce perform on Friday, Jan. 19 at House of Blues. “It’s always cool to think, ‘Holy shit. This thing came out 30 years ago.’ It’s exciting that we’re 30 years deep in this game called the music business. The music has really been kind of timeless. It’s a testament to following your dreams.”
Dutton says that the material on that first album is still close to his heart and that he loves to play the songs live. In fact, he can now look back at how his upbringing and musical influences played a role in shaping the music.
“On the musical side, Bob Dylan and the Beatles were my first big influences along with Velvet Underground,” he says. “Then, I discovered John Hammond, which led me to my love of the blues. I found out that Bob Dylan and John Hammond both recorded their debuts when they were 20 years old. I got hip to their records when I was 17. I had it in my head that I had three years to make a record. I put everything into manifesting that and making that a reality for me. That was my intention. I succeeded in having that happen.”
Growing up in Philadelphia, Dutton was also exposed to hip-hop courtesy of the kids in his basketball league. One particular baller gave him idea that he could rap, something Dutton chronicles in the tune “Rock & Roll (Shouts Out Back to the Rappers).”
“This kid came up to me and put his headphones on me and said, ‘Check this out.’ It was the Beastie Boys track that goes ‘hold it now, hit it.’ He said, ‘Yo, those are white boys just like you,'” recalls Dutton. “There were really no white people rapping then. I was listening to LL Cool J and Run DMC, and there was a program called Street Beat with Lady B on Power 99 FM. That was where I heard everything for the first time. I heard Public Enemy and Stetsasonic and all the rappers from Philadelphia like Fresh Prince and Steady B and Cash Money. I was just a fan of hip-hop. I never aspired to be a rapper. I was taking the blues, and I was writing songs about the city of Philadelphia. I was writing about the culture of the city and graffiti writers and bike couriers and homeless people and basketball courts and South Street.”
To celebrate the debut album’s anniversary, Dutton returned to Sony Records, which originally issued it, for a digital re-release and double vinyl release, which will feature a re-mastered version of the album as well as outtakes and live tracks.
“The live tracks come from a classic rock in 1994 at the Knitting Factory in New York when Keb Mo opened for G. Love & the Special Sauce,” he explains. “That drops on Record Store Day. Sony Records, who we haven’t been with since 2001, are excited about the release and are pressing about 5,000 copies. It’s cool. I started as a street musician, and I met my band, and nine months after I met my band, we signed a deal with Epic, and that’s it. We’ve been on the road ever since.”
For the upcoming House of Blues show, Dutton won’t play the debut in its entirety as he did on the 25th anniversary tour. Rather, he’ll play most of the songs from it and throw in a few fan requests during an encore.
“We’ve put together a really cool show,” he says. “We just toured it in Australia and Europe. Everything is from the first record except the encore, which is a couple of requests. We’re playing almost the whole record. It’s cool. We’re using the material to put together a show that flows. It’s fun. We’ve been coming to Cleveland with our winter tour for the past 10 or 15 years. We always have some great shows there, and the House of Blues is always a fun room.”
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This article appears in Dec 6-19, 2023.
