Although Garrett Dutton comes across as a highly soulful man, he and his band, G. Love & Special Sauce, aren't trying to convert anybody not feeling their groove - at least not true Buffalonians.
"Chicken wings? I don't wanna eat that stuff. I wanna have something good that's good for you," said Dutton, sitting on a couch in the Center For the Arts, where his band played Tuesday night, along with opener Spearhead.
Dutton, wearing sneakers, a large army-green jacket that hid his slim build and a bandana holding back his long hair, would have been hard to pick out of the CFA crowd, many of them devout members of the wing-loving community.
"I know they're good, but I mean, it's terrible for you. That's one of the worst things you can do to yourself," said Dutton.
After realizing he was coming down on a pretty serious tradition, he looked apologetic, then shrugged it off. "I mean, no offense, of course."
Dutton, the 29-year-old "G" in G. Love, is comfortable with the followers his band has gathered through constant touring and a well-worn style. "I always kinda felt like we did our own thing. We have our hardcore fan base, and most people who like us, they really like us."
Although his band falls neatly amidst a growing number of "jam bands" like String Cheese Incident and Galactica, many of whose members Dutton, bassist Jim Prescott and drummer Jeff Clemens consider friends, G. Love & Special Sauce have been gaining converts the same way since the beginning: "People who know about live music know about us, and a lot of people in college know about us."
Reaching out to a college audience is nothing new for his band, said Dutton. "It's a partying crowd out there. They're psyched because you're coming into their house, instead of some bar or somewhere."
Although the video for "Cold Beverage" off their self-titled debut won some MTV airplay and 200,000 self-promoted sales, Dutton doesn't feel pressured to reach out to "the jam band followers," the "hardcore hip-hoppers," or other potential G. Love fans across the musical spectrum.
"If we could reach those people who don't know about us, we'd probably do pretty well, but we're doing pretty well right now, in our own pocket."
Born in Philadelphia and a devoted scholar of the funk, Dutton believes much of the music by which he has been influenced still exists out there, albeit in places other than CD stores.
"I think funk kinda played itself out in the '80s," said Dutton. "All the funkiest kids now play acid-jazz with a hip-hop kind of feel. ... The Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic Five - that's your modern day funk, with groups like the Roots. There is a kind of underground funk, but it's hip-hop now."
As soon as G. Love hit the stage, the theater took on the appearance of a youth revival. Three scruffy-haired reverends moved through quick-footed numbers that had the crowd out of their seats and shaking in the aisles, as well as down-tempo sermons that seemed to grip some in the aisles and left others heading for beer or the restrooms.
While his rhythm section took over, Dutton enticed the crowd, swaying from his stool and singing songs of cold beverages, cheating women and his heroes, among them Jimmy Smith, Elmore James, Bob Dylan and other men of lore in "Blues Music."
At the end, G. Love and Special Sauce sped the crowd into near hysterics, jumped on their final chord and quickly departed the stage, leaving the crowd smiling at each other in the CFA's lobby.
