G. Love & Special Sauce - Sugar (2014)

Twenty years after the release of G. Love and Special Sauce's debut album, the original lineup of the revered hip-hop blues trio is back together for a new album, Sugar. ''I had a good idea for a riff off an old hip hop sample which I changed up, flipped upside down and played with a slide guitar,'' G. Love says about the first single ''Nothing Quite Like Home''. ''We cut the song live with the trio at Brushfire in L.A and added the 'B' section and drum break. I had been talking to Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons earlier in the summer about working on something and I sent him the instrumental we cut. He penned the lyrics and sent back a real tight demo over the instrumental. Later I added my vocals and got a helping hand from two of my favorite singers - Ben Harper, who just brought the chorus to another level, and Marc Broussard, who added some nice backgrounds.'' SUGAR reunites G. Love, upright bassist James ''Jimi Jazz'' Prescott and drummer Jeffrey ''The Houseman'' Clemens for the first time in eight years. Tracked largely at Brushfire Records' Solar Powered Plastic Plant studio in L.A, the disc also features Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo, current Oscar nominee Merry Clayton - best known for her duet with Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones' ''Gimme Shelter'' - and others.