On Thursday, November 4 at 5:00pm, Key West Art & Historical Society celebrates the completion of Fort East Martello’s newly elevated and landscaped Parade Grounds at 3501 S. Roosevelt Blvd., Key West, with a concert event co-produced by COAST Projects starring acclaimed hip-hop blues singer and guitarist Garrett Dutton, founder and front man of the band G. Love & Special Sauce, who will be joined by Skate Rock musician Chuck Treece. (Contributed photo)

Garrett “G. Love” Dutton— all Juiced up and coming to Fort East Martello Parade Grounds for a free concert on November 4

On Thursday, November 4, Key West Art & Historical Society invites the public to a free concert co-produced by COAST Projects starring Philly born-and-raised hip-hop/blues/roots musician Garrett Dutton, known to most as the founder and front man of acclaimed band G. Love & Special Sauce. Dutton will be joined by skaterock musician Chuck Treece on stage at the newly renovated Fort East Martello Parade Grounds and together they will play from over 25 years of a genre-bending catalogue of music, including his 2019 Grammy Nominated album, “The Juice,” which Dutton defines as “a rallying cry for empathy and unity.” We caught up with Dutton while on the road headed south.

KWAHS: So, tell us about your roots. Who introduced you to music as a kid?

Dutton: My mother started me on guitar lessons when I was 8 and it was kind of a struggle, but for some reason I stuck with it. By the time I was thirteen, I could tune the guitar (laughs). A couple of teachers taught me to play and sing and that led to me writing songs—learning from The Beatles and Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Dr. John and stuff like that. My biggest songwriting influences are on the Blues side of things. The other side of it was that I grew up in the 80s and we were kind of the first generation of kids that got to partake in Hip-Hop. It was just part of the culture, an African American art form almost exclusively, but everybody loved it. And then, hip-hop ended up dominating every part of music, even Country music. But even as a huge fan and knowing all the lyrics to all my favorite songs, I never considered rapping. One night I was playing on a street corner of Philadelphia and I was real loose, having a great night, and I just started rapping over Eric B & Rakim’s guitar riff from “Paid in Full.” It was like a light shone down on me, and I was like, “Holy sh*t. No one’s doing that.”

KWAHS: How about harmonica? Who taught you and when did you decide to go full-out with the rack?

Dutton: I had a guitar teacher named Waco Smith. He had a Honky-Tonk band with a harmonica player. We thought the harmonica was just the coolest thing ever, so we asked if he would give us a lesson. He said said, “Buy a Honer Special 20 harmonica in the key of C and then we’ll do it.” We learned how to make a rhythm train and how to bend the note—just a couple of basic pointers. I was into Bob Dylan, so I got the rack. And that was it. I was always looking for something to set me apart from what other people were doing. This was 1986. No one in my school was playing folk music. It was all more like The Cure cover bands. I developed my lyrical expression through the template of writing rhymes, like writing raps and all the words you could put in it. To me, as a lyricist, that really became an expression— the Hip-Hop influence on my Garage Band Blues. Embracing Hip-Hop into a live band structure crossed the cultural lines of utilizing Hip-Hop in an alternative way.

KWAHS: What music projects are you currently working on?

Dutton: We just made a new Hip-Hop Blues record due out next year that Chuck Treece and I wrote called “Philadelphia, Mississippi.” Luther Dickinson from the North Mississippi Allstars produced it at his late father Jim Dickenson’s Zebra Ranch Studio in Coldwater. Jim produced my second record; thirty years later, his son produced my latest. There’s a wonderful thing that’s happening right now. The torch has been passed to a younger generation of Hill Country/Delta Blues players from Mississippi and around that area like Kingfish and Jontavious Willis, Cam Kimbrough, Trenton Ayers, Takara Jackson, Sharday Thomas— these people grew up in the Blues and rediscovered it. We tapped a lot of them and then some older guys like Alvin Youngblood Hart, R.L. Boyce. It was like a musical pilgrimage for me to go where the music that’s inspired me comes from and get to work with some of both the younger and older people that are still doing it. It’s a wonderful, collaborative record.

KWAHS: Where do you get your juice?

Dutton: When I go on stage, my mission is to inspire and make people happy and really just bring them together to enjoy some kind of roots music. And to be a part of that community with guys like Gray Lin and Slim Stetson and everyone else in my extended musical family. That’s something that’s very special to me— to be a part of that bigger community of traveling troubadours. Music is just such a wonderful thing. When you boil it down, it’s really tribal. And it’s about connecting and celebrating both the great things and the hardships in life that we all live and go through and experience personally and as a society and being a voice and expressing some of the things that everybody feels. That’s the mission— to get people dancing and have a good time and let it all hang out for those couple of hours that we get to be together.

Fort East Martello Parade Ground gates open 5:00pm. Admission is free with Monroe County ID; $20 for non-locals. All concertgoers, whether free or paid, must preregister by November 3rd at www.coastisclearfest.com. Registration closes at noon November 3rd. Low-back chairs and blankets are welcome. Covid-19 safety protocols will be observed, including a cap on preregistrations and ticket sales. Rain or shine. Limited parking is available; bicycling encouraged. Your Museums.  Your Community.  It Takes an Island. 

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