Record Store Day 10" EP: G. Love - "Early Rising/Back to Boston" (Jack Johnson)
Garrett "G. Love" Dutton is a Philly-based musician who's been making Blues-infused Hip-Hop for the better part of the past 20+ years. If you ask me, close friend/frequent collaborator Jack Johnson basically aped his whole "Funky [acoustic] surfer dude" style, ran with it, and got commercially successful. But maybe G. Love belongs in the underground music scene; I personally have damn near 100 G. Love & Special Sauce tracks in my iTunes library and 2011's Fixin' to Die was his 12-13th studio album. For those of you who are un-familar with G. Love (WAKE UP!), I'd say he's equal parts rapper and singer-songwriter; almost like a Beastie-Boys-meets-Johnny-Cash kinda guy. Bloodshot & Blue, a 10" EP limited to 2,000 copies, was released this past Saturday for Record Store Day... and I was lucky enough to score a copy on wax!
G. Love recently described the sheer genesis of the EP's creation to Rolling Stone, "I found the Blues walking through the aisles of Third Street Jazz, my independent record store. That store and those records changed my life... The eclectic, unique, and diverse collection of records which indies always have is why those stores turn people onto music, not just sell them music." Recorded last fall during a 2-day session @ Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records home studio, G. Love drew inspiration from infamous Delta Blues guitarists like Mississippi John Hurt and Bukka White. No doubt about it, this shit is downright Funky, gut-churning Blues music that Dutton made with a little help from his friends: Matt Costa, Zach Gill, Juan Alderete, and Johnson, who also produced Tracks #1-6. A recent subscriber to the phillyglove YouTube channel, G. Love has been regularly active since about July 2006. While "Cold Beverage," "Baby's Got Sauce," and all the hits are great, his personal channel is full of gems including "sympathy for the devil," "Milk and Cereal," "CAN I KICK IT?," "Smokin,'" and all sorts of impromptu song break downs.