The California Honeydrops‘ singer and guitarist Lech Wierzynski shared a cover performance of “Angel from Montgomery” to the band’s social media pages earlier this week.
Inspiration for the guitarist’s duet take alongside a bassist of John Prine‘s beloved country tune made famous by Bonnie Raitt was inspired by The California Honeydrop’s tour alongside Raitt a few years back.
As Wierzynski mentioned in a statement shared with the video,
It’s a song that i heard Bonnie sing each and every night when we toured with her and her band 3 years ago and i never got tired of hearing it. It’s not a song I ever planned on playing myself because her version seemed like the only one. Years later, Me and Lorenzo were grooving on the riff to a song we’d heard played by R.L. Boyce and Lightnin Malcolm, when Johnny our sax player said hey “i can hear Angel from Montgomery over this groove, you should try singin’ it”. We never did anything with the idea even though it sounded cool and until the times of quarantine i never had the time to work it out. When John Prine passed away last month it seemed like it was time to make the idea come to life as tribute to one of the great song writers of our time. Thank you John Prine and all the musicians that came before us for the gift of music, now as precious and needed as ever.
Prine died from COVID-19 complications last month at the age of 73.
Watch the cover performance below.
Fans will be able to tune in and watch The California Honeydrops perform live later this month as part of Live For Live Music’s Quarantine Comes Alive, a one-day virtual music festival featuring performances by more than 60 of our favorite artists on throughout the day on Saturday, May 30th beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Modeled after Brooklyn Comes Alive and Denver Comes Alive, Quarantine Comes Alive was conceived as a way to celebrate and support musicians, provide fans with unique musical experiences from the comfort of their couches, and raise money for comprehensive COVID-19 relief during this time of uncertainty. All funds raised from the donation-based event will be split evenly between the artists on the bill and the PLUS1 COVID-19 Relief Fund.
Click here for a full list of participating artists. For more information, visit QuarantineComesAlive.com. For updates, follow Quarantine Comes Alive on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and join the Facebook Event page.