We sat down with Lech Wierzynski to talk about the California Honeydrops (cahoneydrops)—one of the most exciting groups around. Read our profile on the Oakland-based roots band here:
The California Honeydrops aren’t famous yet, but they promise to be one of the most exciting bands on the concert circuit this summer. They proved as much when they brought their horn-fueled form of Southern Soul and New Orleans funk to Delfest, the annual Memorial Day Weekend festival hosted by bluegrass legend Del McCoury. Again and again the Honeydrops confronted the challenges of life in the 2020s and provided a joyful catharsis.
“I wanted to write a sad song,” Wierzynski recalls, “but that didn’t seem fit the joy she had brought into my life. Thanks to her I was set on a different path, so the song was as much about me as her. It’s good to have a crazy aunt or crazy uncle who can give you some options. Maybe it’s not so good to have crazy parents.”
It’s very hard for a band from outside Louisiana to play the state’s music accurately—so much of the feel for that sound comes from absorbing it as a child in parades, funerals, festivals and street parties. Most outsiders are either too stiff or too sloppy. But the California Honeydrops are the exception that proves the rule. Moreover, they never get trapped in “the way it’s always been done,” as many in-staters do. These out-of-staters add both California looseness and jazz-musician chops.
The band’s set at Delfest this year was studded with American roots-music standards: “Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You” by Memphis soul singer Otis Clay, “Tulsa Time” by country crooner Don Williams, “Trouble in Mind” by jazz singer Dinah Washington, “Come Back, Baby” by Oklahoma blues singer Lowell Fulson, and “Let the Good Times Roll” by gospel-soul pioneer Sam Cooke.
It was songwriting that got the California Honeydrops an unlikely gig at a bluegrass festival. In the set before their own at Delfest, the four horn players from the Honeydrops joined the Del McCoury Band on stage to play Wierzynski’s gospel composition, “Other Shore.” As the strings and horns went back to a time when Dixieland and old-time country were very similar, Wierzynski and Del McCoury promised the crowd that “we’ll meet on the other shore.
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