G. Love & Special Sauce is an alternative hip hop band from Philadelphia. They are known for their unique, “sloppy”, and “laid back” blues sound that encompasses classic R&B. The band features Garrett Dutton, better known as G. Love, Jeffrey Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on bass. Dutton, the son of a banking lawyer, was born in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, and began playing guitar at age eight. As a teen, he began writing and playing harmonica in a wire rack. Dutton credits Bob Dylan and John Hammond Jr., as well as the then-contemporary “old school” hip-hop sounds of Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Philadelphia’s own Schoolly D, as influences. The band formed in January 1993 when Dutton was performing at a Boston bar, The Tam O’Shanter. Here he met drummer Jeffrey Clemens. Dutton and Clemens began working as a duo, and were joined a few months later by bassist Jim Prescott and became the house band at The Plough and Stars in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1994, they released their self-titled debut album on Okeh/Sony Records. On the strength of the single “Cold Beverage”, due in part to the song’s rotation on MTV, the album nearly went gold. The group subsequently toured heavily, eventually landing a spot on the H.O.R.D.E. tour.
Tour pressure nearly broke up the band in 1995. They decided on a hiatus, then reunited in 1997.Their fifth album, Electric Mile (2001),showed the wide-ranging influences of the trio, incorporating more hip-hop, funk, psychedelica, blues, and soul in equal and ambitious measure. Always Known for his live shows, he often toured with Jack Johnson, and also Dave Matthews. As a producer, Johnson signed G. Love to his record label Brushfire Records. He has made appearances on the records of artists such as Slightly Stoopid and Donavon Frankenreiter.
The 2015 album, Love Saves The Day,(Oct. 30), features special guests Lucinda Williams, Citizen Cope, Ozomatli, DJ Logic, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Money Mark, Zach Gill of ALO and Adam Topol, and marks the band’s return to the “trashcan blues”/hip-hop/rock sound that made the trio so popular in the early ’90s. Engineer and producer Robert Carranza (Jack Johnson, Beastie Boys, Mars Volta) recorded the group live with few edits to capture the raw and unfiltered electricity of the tracks. “The music,” G. Love enthuses, “jumped off the tape. ”The album will be the sixth released with Brushfire Records, and will complete the G. Love trilogy that started with 2011’s Fixin To Die. ” Muse” with Citizen Cope, is the first single.
Current members:
Garrett Dutton as G. Love (vocals, guitar, harmonica)
Jeffrey Clemens as Houseman (drums, vocals)
Jim Prescott as Jimi Jazz (string bass)
Website: www.philadelphonic.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKZYmH1tggw#t=11