California Honeydrops
Oakland, California, United States | SELF
Music
Press
A sea of sun-drenched people flowed along Fillmore Street on Saturday, partaking of the musical and gustatory pleasures — not to mention the beer, wine and margaritas — served up by San Francisco’s biggest street bash. Blues and barbecued oysters. Fried catfish and Nigerian folk songs. Those were some of the sounds and scents that wafted through the air at the annual Fillmore Jazz Festival, a swinging two-day affair that stretches from Jackson Street in tony Pacific Heights down to Eddy Street in the gritty heart of the Fillmore District.
With music pouring from three stages, and unscheduled street performers popping up unexpectedly, the best way to take in the festival was to simply float and follow your ears. Mine took me to the corner of Fillmore and California streets, where the sensational California Honeydrops were playing an original mix of New Orleans R&B and jazz, blues, soul, and gospel music. A quintet that rocks, struts and sways, the band is led by the Polish-born Lech Wierzynski, a soulful singer with a great falsetto. He plays guitar and good Louis Armstrong-style trumpet, riffing joyously with tenor saxophonist Johnny Bones.
The California Honeydrops
“I heard you a few blocks away and thought you were black,” an admiring African-American woman told Wierzynski after the show. “Man, you’ve got soul.” The blue-eyed singer beamed.
The Honeydrops lit up the big crowd — a multicultural mob that included naval officers and tattooed hipsters — with their good-time music. They dug into Chuck Berry and Fats Domino grooves, early-jazz blues, a rousing version of Wilson Pickett’s Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You, and a dancing original called Breakdown that married South African township jive with New Orleans second-line parade music.
Speaking of which, a second-line street band called the Brass Boppers seemed to appear out of nowhere just south of Geary Boulevard, one of several unexpected delights. Another was the terrific blues guitarist and singer playing in front of Rassela’s Jazz Club and Restaurant. A blues-loving Spaniard named Adrian Costa, he drew a circle of admirers, who stuffed dollar bills in his hat and snapped up his CDs. - San Francisco Classical Voice
‘‘We've played basements, rooftops, warehouses, barns, backyards, campgrounds,” says Lech Wierzynski, rattling off all the funky Bay Area venues his California Honeydrops have survived.
After four years, the hard work and slumming is starting to pay off. The Oakland retro-soul and R&B outfit was just voted “Best Band” in the East Bay Express. In 2009, SF Weekly named them “Best Soul/R&B Band” in the Bay Area.
Born in Poland and raised in Chicago and Washington, D.C., Wierzynski may be one of the unlikeliest soul singers to pick up the microphone. But listen to him belt out “Hell Yes I Cheated” on the band's new album, “Spreading Honey,” and it's hard not to be won over.
He formed the band — originally just a washtub bass, washboard and guitar — as a trio that busked at BART stations, playing everything from Ray Charles to old country blues and funk.
Before the California Honeydrops roll through the Bodega Seafood, Art and Wine Festival this weekend, Wierzynski took time out to chat about retro music, Poland and vacuum cleaners:
Q: I just saw a clip of you guys performing on Polish TV. How cool was that to bring it back to your homeland?
A: It was great. They dug the music. They like to see Polish people doing well abroad and then coming back home. That makes them happy.
Q: What's your first musical memory?
A: Wow. I was 2 years old and trying to play guitar on a vacuum cleaner. It was some Polish third-wave ska band from the '80s. My brother knew all the words and I was just yelling. Funny, I didn't start playing guitar until 20 years later.
Q: You had to graduate from the Hoover first.
A: Yeah, I went from the vacuum cleaner straight to the trumpet. I figured out you could blow into it.
Q: What was it about soul and R&B that sucked you in?
A: Listening to oldies radio — Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield and The Supremes in Chicago. I also remember riding my bike and hearing gospel in the neighborhood. My dad listened to a lot of jazz. It was forbidden music. The communist regime (in Poland) had outlawed listening to jazz and foreign radio. He was into the really old New Orleans stuff.
Q: Do you ever wish you were born in another era?
A: Ah man, I'm done with that. There were times when I was like that. If you wanna make museum music, then you can try to recreate exactly what you've been hearing on the records. But if you wanna make music and live and be happy, you gotta accept where you're at.
Q: How gratifying has it been to get the recognition and awards in Bay Area weeklies?
A: That's the fans right there voting for you. They're super loyal and they want to see us succeed and get bigger. That's a great feeling and that's what's kept us going through some of the hard times. The Bay Area has been great to this weird little band playing weird instruments in weird venues.
Bay Area freelancer John Beck writes about entertainment for The Press Democrat. You can reach him at 280-8014, john@sideshowvideo.com and follow on Twitter @becksay. - Press Democrat
http://www.flickr.com/photos/herewegoagency/sets/72157622169995536/ - Various
...The influences from this band are heavily rooted in artists from the Stax theater, New Orleans horny funk, crossroad country Blues, and woodshed honky tonks...The openness & youthfulness of the music takes you back to a time when music was made for fun and not for monetary gain... - Kyle Palarino
...An amalgam of blues, jug band sounds, vintage jazz, rock-n-roll, and classy R&B. Good timin’ music par excellence...
- Norman Darwen
...The California Honeydrops, from Oakland, are the most refreshing act to roll down the blues highway in some time. Few groups before them have melded so many strains of African American music into such a seamless whole... - Lee Hildebrand
...Oakland’s The California Honeydrops, find themselves firmly rooted in the African-American music tradition...unique arrangements make their debut CD SOUL TUB!, hard to place in genre and time. “Miss Louise” jives like a lost Chuck Berry with a soaring trumpet line...”All You Got To Do” delivers some sad soul with off-kilter harmonies straight from the pews... - Ali Green
...An amalgam of blues, jug band sounds, vintage jazz, rock-n-roll, and classy R&B. Good timin’ music par excellence...
- Norman Darwen
...The California Honeydrops!They are the bomb, and I am the lucky one who gets to introduce them to a national audience. They will make me sound good. It is a very cool disc... - Bill Wax
...The “drops of honey in California” finely move between blues, swing, jazz, and atmosphere flashes of soul. All this mixed with music and joy... - Michele Manzotti
...The California Honeydrops!They are the bomb, and I am the lucky one who gets to introduce them to a national audience. They will make me sound good. It is a very cool disc... - Bill Wax
Discography
Like You Mean It (2013)
1 Here Comes Love
2 Like This, Like That
3 Carolina Peach
4 All Day, All Night
5 Like You Mean It
6 Just Another Day
7 Just Because
8 Prayer (Interlude)
9 Other Shore
10 In Your Power
11 Got the Feeling
12 Bedside Window
13 Baby Boy's Blues
Spreadin' Honey (2010)
1 Train Song
2 When It Was Wrong
3 Spreadin' Honey
4 Pumpkin Pie
5 Let It Go
6 Same Ol', Same Ol'
7 All Them Things
8 Lovin' Like This
9 Cryin' Blues
10 It Ain't Hard To Tell
11 Brokedown
12 Hell Yes, I Cheated
13 Thank You
Soul Tub! (2008)
1 Miss Louise
2 Rain
3 Soul Tub
4 All You Got To Do
5 Bye Bye Baby, I'm Gone
6 Honeydrops Theme
7 In My Dreams
8 Squeezy Breezy
9 Help Me Now
10 All Night Long
11 Cry For Me
12 Soul Tub (Reprise)
Photos
Bio
To those who have seen the California Honeydrops and heard Lech Wierzynski sing and play it may come as a shock that the young frontman was born in Warsaw, Poland. The son of Polish political refugees raised in Chicago and Washington DC, Lech was exposed to wide range of musical influences. “When my dad was growing up in communist Poland in the 40’s and 50’s, old American music was illegal and therefore very cool,” he says. “He passed on the love of old stuff to me: everything from Louis Armstrong to Sam Cooke.”
Like his early influences, Lech has the unique ability to carry a tune casually, conversationally and powerfully as well. But the California Honeydrops are not just another throwback band. “My brother and I had to assimilate to modern American society,” Wierzynski explains, “so we loved all the popular stuff on the radio too, especially Hip-Hop, R&B. Knowing music was our way of proving we were American.” After studying ethno-musicology at Oberlin College, Wierzynski arrived in the Oakland California in 2004. There, he couldn’t help but to continue expanding his musical horizons. “At first,” he recalls, “I played mostly on the street, and then as I got more established I started playing a lot of blues and soul music in clubs and touring. There is a rich heritage of that music here in the Bay, and was lucky enough to play with a lot of older musicians who taught me what it was all about.”
When Lech was ready to combine all his influences into one cohesive sound, he formed the California Honeydrops. By the time the band put out its first tip jar, at an Oakland train station, Lech had already established himself in the Bay Area music scene. “I had gigs, I wasn’t starving,” he explains. “But I wanted to get back to how I started out, playing on the street with friends, having fun, and putting smiles on peoples faces.” With these goals in mind, the California Honeydrops were formed. “Things got going really fast,” remembers drummer and founding member Ben Malament. “People who had seen us on the street were offering us all kinds of gigs. Before we knew it we were a working band, playing clubs parties, and dances all over.” In just few years time this group of street performers would be selling out venues across California and bringing its infectious sound to festivals across the US and Europe.
With a background in West African and New Orleans drumming, Ben Malament has provided a funky rhythmic backdrop to Wierzynski’s soulful vocals and soaring trumpet playing since their subway busking days. The addition of saxophonist Johnny Bones brought to the band his influences from time working with Eddie Palmieri, Nell Carter, and Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums, to form the core of the group. Growing bigger and gathering steam, the Honeydrops have expanded from an acoustic street trio to a full band: piano and keyboards, electric bass, and additional percussion round out their sound. Beyond the band’s shared musical vision remains a greater purpose: to make people dance, sing, and enjoy themselves. The Honeydrops’ music speaks not just to the heart and soul, but also to the body; people have no choice but to dance. Drawing heavily on Southern soul and Bay Area R&B with twist of New Orleans second-line street music, the Honeydrops defy genres. Their style may not have a name, but one thing is certain: The California Honeydrops don’t just play music. They throw parties.
For more info on upcoming performances, recordings, and more, please visit www.cahoneydrops.com
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...The California Honeydrops, from Oakland, are the most refreshing act to roll down the blues highway in some time. Few groups before them have melded so many strains of African American music into such a seamless whole...
- Lee Hildebrand, Living Blues Magazine, Livingblues.com
...We were lucky enough to host The California Honeydrops in July. We were astonished by their amazing performance, not to mention attendance. It was a rocking house! We will happily host them again...
- Erik Siebert, Yoshi's Jazz Club, Oakland, CA, http://www.yoshis.com
...The California Honeydrops!They are the bomb, and I am the lucky one who gets to introduce them to a national audience. They will make me sound good. It is a very cool disc...
- Bill Wax, Proprietor of Low-Fi’s Bar & Grill, Sirius/XM, “Juke Joint” w/ Bill Wax (M-F, 3-6pm Eastern), Request line:1866-267-0454
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