G. G. Love

Mixing old school blues and folk with new school hip-hop and funk, G. Love’s electrifying new album, Philadelphia Mississippi, brings together both sides of the genre-bending pioneer’s eclectic career in a wildly innovative and deeply reverent sonic pilgrimage to the heart of the South. Produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson, the collection is loose and spontaneous, full of joyful, improvised performances and freewheeling collaborations with a slew of special guests including blues torchbearers like Alvin Youngblood Hart and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and rap icons like Schoolly D and Speech. It would have been easy for G. Love to play it safe coming off his GRAMMY-nominated 2020 release, The Juice, but Philadelphia Mississippi is perhaps his most adventurous collection to date, ditching all the rules as it experiments with form and function in an ecstatic celebration of music’s power to connect across genres and generations. Born Garrett Dutton in Philadelphia, PA, G. Love first broke out in the early ’90s with his band, Special Sauce, on their strength of their Gold-selling self-titled debut. Over the next three decades, he would go on to release seven more critically acclaimed albums with Special Sauce (plus five on his own), become a fixture on festival lineups from Bonnaroo to Lollapalooza, and collaborate on the road and in the studio with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Dave Matthews, The Avett Brothers, Jack Johnson, Keb’ Mo’, and DJ Logic.

Following up his 2017 holiday missive Coming Home For Christmas, G. Love is revisiting the warm fuzzy feeling of the holiday season with Coming Back Home For Christmas!, out Nov. 26. Said G. Love of the new project, “Coming Back Home For Christmas! Ring in your holidays with 10 brand-new-made-from-scratch-fresh-out-da-kitchen-homegrown-all-organic-holiday-classics-from-the-dome-for-the-entire-family-jawn! Recorded and Produced by Jon Evans in Orleans, Massachusetts, this rootsy, heartfelt holiday classic will bring the love and the blues into your holiday soundtrack. Much love and thanks for your support!”

Love broadened their scope into psychedelia on their sophomore effort, Arthur Lee's achingly melodic songwriting gifts reaching full flower. The six songs that comprised the first side of this album when it was first issued are a truly classic body of work, highlighted by the atomic blast of pre-punk rock "Seven & Seven Is" (their only hit single), the manic jazz tempos of "Stephanie Knows Who", and the enchanting "She Comes in Colors", perhaps Lee's best composition (and reportedly the inspiration for the Rolling Stones' "She's a Rainbow"). It's only half a great album, though; the seventh and final track, "Revelation", is a tedious 19-minute jam that keeps Da Capo from attaining truly classic status.

Kenny G's work can be divided into three main categories: first, his improvisatory fusion efforts as a Jeff Lorber sideman in the late '70s; second, his R&B-oriented albums of 1982-1985; and third, the elevator Muzak he has specialized in since 1986. Falling into the second category, G Force is a fairly decent urban contemporary release that clearly benefits from the input of Kashif (who serves as executive producer). Kashif was hot at the time, and the R&B singer/producer/songwriter had been burning up the charts with hits by Evelyn "Champagne" King, George Benson, Howard Johnson and himself. Kashif's stamp is all over this sleek album; you can hear it on both the tunes with R&B vocals…

On the surface, the music of Love/Hate's debut may seem no different than most any late-'80s L.A. pop-metal, but the band's performance exudes a fury and belligerence that posers such as Poison or Warrant could never even grasp; actually, they would turn on their heels and run away screaming from it. The band literally "plays on 11," from the very first crunching power chord of the title track to the last cymbal crash of the frenzied "Hell Ca., Pop. 4." In between, they alternate the sheer power of "Rock Queen," "One More Round," and "Straightjacket" with the haunting yet beautiful melodies of "Mary Jane" and "She's an Angel."

Kicking off with perhaps their best single yet, Wasted in America's title track propels Love/Hate into what initially promises to be another amphetamine-fueled romp through hard-rock excess. This promise soon turns to disappointment, however, as the subsequent songs lack the focus of the band's once fabulously straightforward sound. If anything, Love/Hate is guilty of trying to cover too much ground, and pieces like "Spit," "Happy Hour," and "Yucca Man" alternate reliably catchy choruses with strangely jagged, off-kilter verses. The result is more disjointed than exciting, and further attempts at creepy atmospherics ("Cream," "Don't be Afraid") and acoustic forays "Don't Fuck With Me," "Social Sidewinder" are more amusing than interesting.

“I’ve been in the game a long time, but I’ve always considered myself a student,” says G. Love. “Finishing this album with Keb Mo’ felt like graduation.” Recorded in Nashville with a slew of special guests including Robert Randolph, Marcus King, and Roosevelt Collier, ‘The Juice’ is indeed diploma-worthy. Co-produced and co-written with GRAMMY-winning icon Keb Mo’, it’s an electrifying collection, one that tips its cap to more than a century of blues greats even as it offers its own distinctly modern pop spin on the genre and solidifies his place in music history as a genre-bending pioneer with a sound The New York Times described as “a new and urgent hybrid” and NPR called a “musical melting pot.”