Hit the Sauce

The last bro standing from the ’90s jam band/groove-rock scene (Sublime, Dave Matthews, Blues Traveler et al.), Garrett Dutton, better known as G. Love of G. Love & Special Sauce, is way too chill to care much about superstardom. Instead, G. Love & Special Sauce continues to bring danceable, reggae- and hip-hop-inflected blues rock to the masses. G. Love’s latest, 2014’s Sugar, is more of the same.

Sugar kicks off with the swampy slide guitar of “Come Up Man,” channeling Jack White and The Black Keys with a hip-hop groove. “Good Life” has the crack-a-Coors-and-do-some-fishin’ Southern-rock boogie of Kid Rock, and “Nite Life” sports a dancing-barefoot-in-the-grass reggae backbeat alongside bluesy harmonica.  Dutton laments like a true bluesman past his prime, “Nite life ain’t no good for me now.”

Elsewhere, “One Night Romance” is an authentic R&B tune featuring vocals from the soul-singer aristocrat Merry Clayton, famous for her back-up work on the Rolling Stones classic “Gimme Shelter.” “Weekend Dance #2” showcases the trumpet work of New Orleans-based trumpeter Shamarr Allen.

G. Love & Special Sauce and Stephen Marley open for Slightly Stoopid 6 pm Wednesday, July 9, at Cuthbert Amphitheater; $37.50 adv., $40 door.