Garrett "G. Love" Dutton on His Life-Affirming Moment & Returning to Philly to Perform

Singer Garrett “G. Love” Dutton cut school for the first time and unexpectedly got a glimpse at his future.

For fans of G. Love & the Special Sauce’s trashcan blues, the last three years have been fun. After a five-year hiatus that found Philadelphia singer/guitarist Garrett “G. Love” Dutton playing without Sauce drummer Jeffrey Clemens and bassist Jimi “Jazz” Prescott, the trio reunited for 2014’s Sugar, 2015’s Love Saves the Day, and a 2016 tour that brings them to The Fillmore on March 26. “It’s like we were never apart,” says Dutton of his trio’s hip-hop blues.

G. Love’s career—and everything else in his life—starts and ends with Philly. His own moment of truth was more ordinary than exceptional. “I was 16, a good kid who never cut school, save for this one day, when me and my girlfriend, Sara, were hanging on the hill behind the Society Hill Towers. We were kissing. I had the bagged lunch my mom made me and my guitar, and I told her that ‘all this’ was all I needed.”

With that, Dutton eschewed college for the life of a street-performing troubadour. He met his Sauce bandmates and made demos in 1992 after he saw a flyer for the Philly Music Conference outside of a Tower Records. “I sent in our demo and very quickly got a call from somebody at Studio 4 and Ruffhouse Records. In 1993, that was like winning the lottery. Which I did.”