Photo by Noah Abrams

The last few years have been rough on Garrett Dutton.

The 38-year-old musician has rocked through the highs of life and inched through the lows. And after suffering an acute vocal hemorrhage, multiple major record labels dropping him and dealing with the complicated emotions of watching friends’ records succeed while his records don’t, Dutton seems to have found the sweet spot.

“Over the years, my focus has faltered,” says Dutton looking truck-stop dapper in a pearl-snap plaid shirt and jeans. “But I’m just a man trying to live my life, and now, I feel like my focus is completely right. And that’s helping to even things out.” Dutton is talking about his latest record, the back-to-blues Fixin’ to Die on Brushfire Records, and how it’s the album that he was born to make.

But this time, the record-I-was-born-to-make talk is not a rock star cliché of an artist pulling out of a lackluster album cycle with hyperbolic talk and a stoic, forward-looking gaze. While the last G. Love & Special Sauce record, 2008’s Superhero Brother, was a commercial flop and the worst-selling unit of the group’s 18-year career, Fixin’ to Die, produced by Scott and Seth Avett (two principals of the The Avett Brothers), is a throwback to Dutton’s deep past.

It also represents his future legacy.

“I’ve always talked about how I can play the blues, but this is about us showcasing what we can do,” says Dutton, the Boston boy who left his heart in his native Philadelphia. “I’ve been ready to make this record for 25 years.”

The meandering lines of Widespread Panic waft into to the dressing room the night before New Year’s Eve as the band soundchecks at the Pepsi Center, a Denver arena better known for hosting hockey games than rock shows. Dutton is opening two big, celebratory nights for the Georgia rock act and his band’s rehearsal space is the musty visiting hockey team’s locker room. At the moment, he’s wrapping up a band meeting and rehearsal.

“Just chill for a little bit – whenever you’re ready,” he tells original drummer Jeff Clemmons, organ man Mark Boyce and new bassist Timo Shanko. “I wanna play [Bukka White’s]‘Fixin’ to Die.’ That’s the only one I really have to play tonight.”

Spirits are high. The crew and band made it to Denver despite airport delays on the east coast and in the Rockies due to the blizzard that hit several days before, crippling much of the country’s air travel. Brushfire Records, co-owned by Dutton’s buddy Jack Johnson, is pleased with Fixin’ to Die. And the new album’s buzz is already filtering through all of the right industry channels.

Conversations with radio stations are going well, too. While station and program directors don’t want G. Love’s curious new cover of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” – because Simon himself has a new song on the radio for the first time in years – they are interested in the title track and the mellow, melodic “Just Fine.” G. Love is hardly a blogger darling – in fact, he’s been criticized by the cool kids for his earnest take on hip-hop – but even the hipsters are psyched about the Avett Brothers’ participation on his new blues record.

“It’s been easy to hate on me because I’m a white dude who plays the blues and raps,” he says with a familiarity that’s almost too self-aware. “I get that. It’s easy to hate on us. But on the Jack [Johnson] tour last summer, it was just me and an acoustic guitar. You can’t hate on that.”

For two months, Dutton opened Johnson’s shows by himself – a rebuilding exercise to help him prepare for the Fixin’ to Die sessions. “It was a challenge translating what I do with the band into an acoustic environment – and for such large audiences,” Dutton says of the Johnson tour. “Part of that was opening every night’s set with ‘Milk and Sugar,’ a lighthearted song that has some real Delta blues picking. I’m going to start the show with it tonight, because I find that it really engages the crowd. Hell, it’s about coffee!”

“Milk and Sugar” is a likable jam on a record that is full of them. The stark, footstomps-and-handclaps title track paints a bleak picture, but the Booker White-penned song benefits from the Avetts’ Judgment Day-styled production and gospel-inspired backing vocals. And the rollicking, early-Dylan choruses of “Ma Mere” are a sly-and-subtle tribute to Dutton’s late grandmother.

Photo by Noah Abrams

“Some of those songs were written in high school,” reveals Dutton. “If a song can survive so many years and still be something I like to play, that, to me, says it’s a pretty great song.”

He plays two songs from his teenage years on the album – “Get Going” and “Walk On” – which are simple and straightforward explorations of highway blues. While most of the new record is straightforward roots music, there are hints of Dutton’s trademark delivery, which is nestled somewhere between the easy flow of Jack Johnson and the lyrical jog of hip-hop.

In fact, the most melodically compelling of the new songs is also the sore thumb of the group. The sunny “Just Fine” reveals Dutton’s passion for mashing hip-hop with the blues. And why not throw it in there? It’s a style that has served him well, from the mid-to-late-‘90s hits “Cold Beverage” and “Stepping Stones” to his transition into the adult alternative world which coincided with “Rodeo Clowns,” the Jack Johnson penned track G. Love recorded and broke in 1999 on Philadelphonic.

If the argument has been made that G. Love broke Jack Johnson’s career wide open, then it’s also safe to say that Johnson salvaged G. Love’s career.

“Thank god for me being friends with people in high places,” Dutton says seriously f his friend Johnson who has headlined Coachella, sold out America’s biggest amphitheaters and made the Curious George soundtrack a platinum seller.

But what about any lingering jealousy?

“It was only frustrating that very first year,” Dutton confirms. “We’d put out the record with [Johnson’s track], and that put him out there and had him blowing up in California.”

At that time, manager JP Plunier signed Johnson to his Enjoy label (now called Everfine) and put him on a tour with one of his management clients, Ben Harper. Dutton didn’t have the best relationship with Plunier and he was also dealing with drama involving his longtime backing band, Special Sauce. The issue was that the band didn’t play on “Rodeo Clowns” but the label still wanted them to be in the music video. The band denied the label’s request, no one ever made the video and Philadelphonic never met sales expectations (though the album remains the band’s biggest seller with nearly 300,000 in sales).

“We didn’t capitalize on trying to manage Jack and putting his records out,” Dutton says. “[Jack Johnson manager Emmett Malloy and JP] did and they succeeded. There was a minute where I was ticked off. My shit was going downhill. And I felt like my luck was gone. Jack was taking off like he was a rocket ship and [Brushfire Records] wrote their own deal with the [Universal Records]. They got the craziest deal ever, got super-paid, made huge records and their touring took off. And everything’s been sold out since then.”

When Universal dropped G. Love, Johnson stepped in and signed him to Brushfire. And when G. Love didn’t have a summer 2010 tour, Johnson stepped in again.

“He’s never turned his back on anybody who’s made music with him,” Dutton says. “I see our relationship continuing forever. As long as those guys have the energy to put out records, I feel comfortable with them.”

Fixin’ to Die actually grew out of Dutton’s conversations with Johnson and Brushfire co-owner Malloy.

“Everybody was listening to the songs I’d been working on,” says Dutton, “and they told me, ‘This isn’t going to hit. We need you to do something different. If you want to make a blues record, why are you wasting your time?’”

Photo by Noah Abrams

On New Year’s Eve, Dutton is back in his rehearsal room/NHL locker room. But this time, he’s warming up with “Drinkin’ Wine,” an old blues jam popularized by Lightnin’ Hopkins. The song has a nice, breezy feeling. Dutton explores his falsetto croon and it’s an ideal warm-up for a New Year’s Eve show.

“We’ve been off since October,” says Michael Hannigan, the band’s tour manager. “This trip is about reconnecting with each other before we really get going on the record.”

The record was born last September when Dutton spent nine days at Echo Mountain Recording Studio, a converted church in Asheville, N.C., with the Avett Brothers. He’d met the Avetts after the band’s 2009 show in Boston and they hung out again at moe.’s annual Summer Camp in Illinois last summer. The sessions were intensely collaborative with Scott Avett offering banjo and Seth Avett providing various accompaniment as the process unfolded.

The Avetts are old-school G. Love fans and Dutton is a fan of their unique blend of bluegrass and pop. The brothers’ recent popularity boom helps bolster the buzz behind Fixin’ to Die.

“The brothers have a lot of credibility right now,” says Dutton. “Those guys have a nice working relationship where they’ll talk shit out, even if they don’t agree on things. They both were coming up with ideas constantly and they added so much to the sessions by stepping up in different ways. It was a triumvirate where we were all letting it flow and encouraging each other and being honest about what was and what wasn’t working. The only thing I couldn’t get them to do was drink a lot.”

G. Love isn’t denying the rumors. Somehow, a bottle of homemade, Asheville moonshine found its way into the studio and Dutton couldn’t resist sampling it.

“Oh, that moonshine was so good,” he remembers. “Honestly, I’ve always felt like having a couple drinks or smoking a little herb can lead to a euphoric experience musically. Call it whatever you will, but it’s a treat to get in the studio and get a buzz on and cut a vocal or a guitar solo. It’s part of the whole process.”

The Avetts were impressed with Dutton’s ferocity in the studio – both his work ethic and his passion for the music.

“I’ve been a G. Love fan since I was 16 years old – five years before we started the Avett Brothers,” says Seth Avett, who brought the old blues track “You’ve Got to Die” to the sessions to Dutton’s delight. “He’s a true song man and he loves to play music. He’ll sit there and play music all day long. Our only job was the help make decisions on what to do next and how many times to do it.”

Sitting down with Dutton and a harmonica or acoustic guitar is a music lesson in and of itself, says Seth, noting that G. Love is an undervalued blues practitioner.

“His ability within the realm of blues music is highly underestimated,” he says. “I don’t think he gets the respect he deserves. He is a modern equivalent to a lot of these great blues masters, in my mind…And, yet, there is a whole set of Americana-roots bands that are unaware of G. Love, which is a terrible thing. They should know about him and we hope this record will open some doors.”

Dutton says that his time in Asheville was the most inspired he’s ever felt in the studio.

“This record is real and honest,” Dutton says. “It’s the best thing we could have done at this point. Clearly, it’s not geared toward big commercial success. But maybe I’ve been going after a commercial success I’m not supposed to have. If I can sell a million records, let’s do it. But if not, I think there’s a good chance this record could get a Grammy – for contemporary blues or contemporary folk or the collaboration aspect.”

Whereas Dutton used to focus on the moment, he’s now looking to the future. He’s newly engaged and finally living in the same city as his 9-year-old son (the reason behind his move to Boston). And all of the energy he used to spend on “chasing girls” – which was a lot of energy, as he’ll tell you – now goes toward his family and music.

“We’re not kids anymore and not too many of the first-generation blues recording artists – our idols – are around anymore,” Dutton says. “People like John Hammond, Taj Mahal and B.B. King are getting up in their years. In 40 years, I’ll be one of the seniors carrying that torch and I’m really proud of that tradition. It feels great to prove myself in that genre – though it doesn’t mean I won’t keep putting hip-hop into what we do.”