Superhero Lemonade

G. Love Gave Us a Lemon, but He’s Back with a Savior of an Album

By Alan Sculley

G. Love & Special Sauce are again cooking up albums, and a promising live tour.

G. Love considers Superhero Brother, the new album he made with his band Special Sauce, one of the best studio experiences he’s ever had.

However, the same couldn’t be said of his previous CD, Lemonade.

In a 2007 interview, Love said there were considerable tensions within the band, especially early in the recording sessions.

The problems, Love admitted, were largely self-inflicted. He didn’t prepare himself for the Lemonade sessions, and started recording without any pre-production or giving his bandmates the opportunity to hear the songs he wanted to record.

“That was frustrating for the band and frustrating for me,” Love said in that interview. “The first week was real, real rough.”

So for Superhero Brother, Love, whose real name is Garrett Dutton III, was determined not to make the same mistakes.

 “I wanted to prepare my band so they knew what they were doing and they had a chance to kind of bond with the material and come up with something unique for every song, and give them a chance to say, ‘You know what, I’m not really feeling this song,’” Love said last month. “Instead of a confused band and a dictatorship leader, most of the time everybody was on the same page,” he said.

The singer/guitarist/harmonica player started writing Superhero Brother well before the CD was to be recorded, and the group road-tested many of the songs on a club tour last summer.

So when Love and his bandmates went into the studio, they had settled on most of the songs, were well-rehearsed, and ready to go to work.

“That was the kind of vibe we had in the studio, just working quick,” Love said. “Every song we got in one to three takes, except one song.… We were just prepared, and because of that, it just made everybody, like, all right — you felt like you were achieving something.”

Making sure his Special Sauce bandmates (bassist Jim “Jimi Jazz” Prescott, drummer Jeffrey “The Houseman” Clemens and keyboardist Mark Boyce) felt invested in the material was a wise move for Love. Long before the Lemonade sessions, the artist knew things could get testy within the band.

That much became apparent early in the group’s career when the original trio of Love, Prescott and Clemens — coming off a gold-selling 1994 self-titled debut album — split up after touring behind the commercially disappointing 1995 follow-up CD, Coast to Coast Motel.

The split proved temporary. After initially starting a third CD entitled Yeah, It’s That Easy with a different group of musicians, Love, by the end of the sessions, had reunited with Prescott and Clemens.

The group went on to release four more CDs: Philadelphonic (1999), Electric Mile (2001), The Hustle (2004) and Lemonade. But it hasn’t always been sweet harmony for G. Love and Special Sauce.

“It’s a very, like, complicated chemistry, but I always think it’s, like, family love,” the bandleader said. “Obviously, at this point we’re all family and we’ve been riding around in a van and then a tour bus for the last 13 years together. … Everybody’s just living in a box, so to speak. So it’s definitely an experiment in human relationships. So with all that, there are some tense moments, but there’s a lot of love.”

It hasn’t hurt that G. Love and Special Sauce seem to have their careers back on track these days.

After experiencing slumping album sales and parting ways with Epic Records following the Electric Mile album, Love got a fresh start by signing with Brushfire Records, the label owned by the popular singer-songwriter Jack Johnson.

Just as importantly, for The Hustle, Love recommitted himself to the stripped-down blend of acoustic blues, rock and hip-hop that characterized his popular first album.

That approach continued on Lemonade, and over the course of those CDs, Love’s live audience has grown consistently: For the second straight summer, he is headlining medium-sized amphitheaters in many markets, and large clubs and theaters in others.

Superhero Brother rocks a bit harder than the two previous albums, but stays true to their sound. It also includes its share of tunes with instantly likable melodic hooks and irresistible grooves, including “Wiggle Worm,” “Communication” and “Peace, Love and Happiness.”

Love said the material on Superhero Brother translates well to the stage, and the group is showcasing songs from throughout its career.

“We always play for a solid hour and a half. Then, if the venue permits and the vibe’s right, we’ll go over two hours,” Love said. “I think it’s a thing where you want to play until everything’s peaked, the audience has peaked, and you as a band have peaked. You don’t want to have to kill yourself out there or kill the audience. You want everybody to have a good time. That’s one thing I’ve kind of learned over the years — when to say enough’s enough.”

G. Love & Special Sauce will perform at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 23 at Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, 1806 N.E. Sixth St., Pompano Beach. Tickets are $29.50. For tickets and information, call 954-946-2402.