G. Love and Special Sauce

Garrett Dutton's Philadelphonic tonic—a potent blend of hip hop and blues—still ploughs fresh ground as a mingling of seemingly closely related genres. Besides some North Mississippi bands and a few scattered others, G. and his pals pretty much set the standard for mixing rural roots and urban sounds, further complicating things by stirring in such disparate stuff as Philly soul, psychedelia, even rock steady. The last, complete with a contemporary steely edge, surfaces in a cover of Delroy Wilson's "Wontcha Come Home" on G.'s latest, last summer's Superhero Brother. Hybridization flourishes throughout: O'Jayisms surface on "Crumble," blues-rock referencing Sly drives "What We Need," "Peace, Love and Happiness" crosses the Stones with Neville Brothers second-line rhythms, "Georgia Brown" lashes together the Meters, Allmans, and Little Walter, every cut dialing in various doses of hip hop. The title cut is Delta blues plopped down in the Bronx, with G. ruminating on the sorry state of the world, name-checking Britney Spears, Jesus, Saddam Hussein, and pygmy marmosets. With Elmwood. 18+.
Fri., April 17, 8 p.m., 2009