G. Love Includes Fans In New Isolation Video for “Shake Your Hair”

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based alternative hip hop/blues recording artist G. Love (born Garrett Dutton), frontman of the band G. Love and Special Sauce, has recently released a video for his single “Shake You Hair” off the collective’s eleventh studio album, The Juice. As previously reported in Rolling Stone, “G. Love enlists his homebound fans for a new music video for his song ‘Shake Your Hair.’ In typical G. Love fashion, the track is a funky jam with a hooky chorus and rapid-fire lyrical delivery.”

G. Love and Special Sauce’s touring roster is comprised of frontman Dutton (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Jim Prescott (bass) and Jeffrey Clemens (drums). As a solo artist G. Love has released a total of three full length studio albums: 2004’s The Hustle, 2006’s Lemonade and 2011’s Fixin’ To Die, via Brushfire Records. Dutton, commonly referred to as G. Love, spoke to the genesis of the song “Shake Your Hair” and the influences it draws from, saying:

“‘Shake Your Hair’ is a song sharing the flavor of R.E.M.’s ‘It’s the End of the World’ and Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ The lyrics are a huge list of where-we-are-at pop culture references with the sentiment that our ‘American Empire’ could be all done.”

The approach to the music video for “Shake Your Hair” is an immersive experience having fans submit homemade videos of themselves jamming out to the tune. The uptempo track makes for a funky, blues and hip hop infused, banger that has fans of all ages dancing and lip-synching to the song. The inventive idea for this video, as previously noted in the aforementioned Rolling Stone article, was that of director Steve Condon as G. Love breaks down the making of the video, saying:

“Director Steve hit me up shortly after all our tours were cancelled due to COVID-19 and said let’s do something remote. Despite all the negatives, this has been a wonderful time for connections.”

According to the review, here on mxdwn, for The Juice, “The Juice defies genre-categorization. The bluesy-twangy style from earlier albums remains intact, though more refined than before.  From a frantic dance track (‘Birmingham’) to an easy groove (‘SoulBQue’) the album retains characteristic genre-melding and never forgets to lift up the listener. The album’s best tool, however, is that it never takes itself too seriously, so grab some friends, sit back and enjoy this delightful album.”

To listen to “Shake Your Hair” stream below, via YouTube.