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 The California Honeydrops (from the album Call It Home, Vol 1 & 2) And the answer is Call It Home, Vol 1 & 2. The question for The California Honeydrops was how to title their healthy double-disc recent release in a way that represents the stories inside. Memories take the lead as The California Honeydrops recall “Those Days” on cascading rhtyhms, depend on beating the weather by staying safe inside with “Good, Good Lovin’, look back and listen to the lessons of the past in “Live Learn”, and future-trip a fantasy as they dream of a “Silicon World”. Honeydrops frontman Lech Wierzynski (guitar, trumpet, vocals) had the album theme of home rolling around his mind, and he provides the back story as ‘I was born in Warsaw, Poland. My parents brought me here as a kid and we moved around a lot. They were always talking about missing where they were from and I was always wondering who I was in that way, whether I was Polish or Amercan or both. I didn’t set out to make an album about that, but these songs just started coming out that way’. Filling out the lineup for The Calfornia Honeydrops are Johnny Bones (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Lorenzo Loera (keys, melodica), Beau Bradbury (bass, percussion) and co-founder, Ben Malamet (drums, washboard, percussion), who sees band history, past and future, in the theme of Call It Home, Vol 1 & 2, adding that ‘we’ve always been a (San Francisco) Bay Area band and the Bay Area has been such a hotbed of change the last 10 years. It’s been interesting for us to see and live in, and it’s affected the way the band works’. The streets of San Francisco is where The California Honeydrops lived formative years, busking and gaining a following that took them from street corner to stages. While the venue for the music of The California Honeydrops has changed, the music they bring to the world stay true to origins. The California Honeydrops exist inside the sound of the soul, presenting Vintage as a living art form for modern day music. They haul out the tambourine to back church choir organ and harmonies (“Tell Me, I Wanna Know)”, sink into a lowdown groove (“Still Standin’ Blues”), saddle up for a slow ride on a Country & Western rhythm (“Drop by Drop”), and drift on Carribean beats and Soca horns (“Your Sweet Love”). Call It Home, Vol 1 & 2 pays tribute to a classic sound, shuffling styles from the second line shout out in “Cry for Me”, the Jazz rhythm rush of “Starr Child”, the slithering groove of “Things We Used to Do”, and the rambling twang of “In My Baby’s Arms”). The California Honeydrops underline the theme of Call It Home, Vol 1 & 2, beginning each disc side with tunes that mirror the name as the title track opens side one on a smooth Southern Soul rhythm and “Only Home I’ve Ever Known” nods to Stephen Foster as it gives kudos to the third stone from the sun. Listen and buy the music of The California Honeydrops from AMAZON http://www.cahoneydrops.com/ listen hear:
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