Wild Honey Backyard: Dead Rock West with Special Guest Ruthann Friedman!!!
About this Event
Wild Honey Foundation's 2026 Backyard concert series continues with an amazing performance by Dead Rock West with support from Ruthann Friedma at our newly renovated performance space. Music begins at 4pm with Ruthann's set. Dead Rock West will take the stage after 5pm. There is a good amount of street parking on our street but be prepared to climb the hill if you arrive late. Please be respectful of the neighbors. We will have food and non-alcoholic beverages for sale.
DEAD ROCK WEST
These are difficult days and we need more and more love,” says Frank Lee Drennen, songwriter, guitarist, and singer with Cindy Wasserman in the band Dead Rock West. More Love, the pair's fourth album and first for Omnivore Recordings, was made under the California sun with producer John Doe and a studio full of special guests, yet Frank and Cindy's wraparound vocals remain the focal point over the course of its12 heartstrong songs. “Frank played me the song 'More Love,' and I was so blown away, I thought, that's it!” says Cindy. “It became the inspiration for the harmonies and the song ideas for the entire record.” The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered in LA by Grammy-winner Dave Way, with David J. Carpenter on bass, D.J. Bonebrake on drums, multiinstrumentalist Geoff Pearlman, keyboardist Phil Parlapiano, special guests Elliot Easton and Greg Leisz on guitars, and Mike Bolger on horns. “This was a group effort; band, singers, engineer, producer all equal, all working toward a common, honest goal,” says Doe. “All of us in a room making real music, from the heart, from intuition, from aching and wanting, from beauty and the desert.”
From the opening love-affirming title song and throughout its passionate performances (including a surprising country-soul finale, Sam Cooke's “Bring It On Home To Me”), love is the tie that binds, though Frank counters, “For me, it's totally a non-concept album.” But whether it's their honeyed voices rubbing against the hard won guitar strums as on “Boundless Fearless Love,” or the whispers between lines of “Radio Silence,” the duo have an undeniably entwined singing style. Locked in, like all great vocal duos, their sound was characterized by the Los Angeles Times as “bent notes in tandem, musically summoning a flawless union.” (July 17, 2015) “They are a modern day Gram and Emmylou singing songs that Otis and Carla would sing,” says Doe. "Somehow Cindy and Frank connect the dots between ’70s country and ’60s soul music." The jingle jangle of the Byrds and the lyrical economy of Buddy Holly, Merle Haggard and Lou Reed inform Frank's writing style while Cindy loves American classics, from anonymous down home singers to the more sophisticated song styles of Smokey Robinson and vocal teams like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. When paired with Doe and their family of collaborators, the result is positively transcendent and soul-stirring rock magic– the golden harmonies, the unbroken melodies that sound like love in action and that could only have been made in California. Frank and Cindy's shared love of country, rock, and soul singing and songwriting has only grown deeper through their ongoing collaborations with three California songmen: Doe (of X, the Knitters, and the John Doe Band) Dave Alvin (of the Blasters and the Guilty Men and Women) and Peter Case (formerly of the Nerves and the Plimsouls and producer/arranger of Dead Rock West's second album, Bright Morning Stars). “We call them the Holy Trinity,” says Cindy who sings on the road and in the studio with Doe, while Frank claims an early enounter with Case guided him toward finding his own spiritual style of secular songwriting. “Peter's songs embraced regular people in common circumstances, yet they were personal, heartfelt, and deeply spiritul,” says Frank. "Each one of them hits a spot where it's so exciting,” says Cindy. “They're all so different but the thread that connects them is they are amazing writers, such wordsmiths, and that they came from punk rock and turned that energy into incredible artistry.” Call them mentors or big brothers, “That they've taken us as their own is like a dream," says Cindy. The dream started for Frank and Cindy on the Southern California club scene.
Debuting in 2007 with the independent Honey and Salt, they followed with the aforementioned California spirituals collection, Bright Morning Stars, then received critical raves for 2015's It's Everly Time!, an homage to pioneering rock vocalists and songwriters, the Everly Brothers. With More Love, Dead Rock West returns to original music with an indie/Americana bent. Pulling the songs together with a method he borrowed from songwriting legend, Guy Clark, Frank says, “I don't care how many years it takes me, I just wait until I have ten songs I want to put on a record.” As they developed the repertoire, “Cindy and I deconstructed the songs,” he explains. Switching roles as written in the verses and choruses, “There's something about that dynamic that allows for a deeper contrast than when you hear the traditional male/female parts sung," says Frank. The added dimensions of road and recording experience contributed to the making of More Love as did an appreciation of the brevity and preciousness of life itself. Between records, both band members lost close family members – Frank's mother Nelda Gunn-Drennen and Cindy's brother, Rob Wasserman, the noted bassist. Music became a lifeline during the grieving spell. ”I just wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for Rob, honestly I wouldn't,” says Cindy whose brother introduced her to his collaborators like Lou Reed, Brian Wilson, and Stéphane Grappelli (who played with guitarist, Django Reinhardt). All these encounters made their imprints on Dead Rock West's own commitment to excellence, and to love, at all costs. "More Love is heart and soul from two deeply original singers and songwriters,” says Doe, a true believer who's been witness to Dead Rock West's process as it continues to unfold. “As Willie Dixon said to me when I was blessed to meet him some years ago,” says Cindy. “Happy or sad songs, they are all about love--more love.” ###
Ruthann Friedman (born July 6, 1944) is an American folk singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for composing the 1967 number-one hit "Windy," which was recorded by the sunshine pop band The Association and became one of the era's defining tracks.[1][2][3]
Born in the Bronx, New York, as the youngest of three children in a leftist household, Friedman was exposed to folk music through her older sister's bohemian college friends and began playing guitar at age eight.[1] Her family relocated to North Hollywood, California, in 1954 due to her father's health issues, where she attended Grant High School, wrote her first song at age 12, and developed a solitary interest in music amid personal challenges, including her father's death when she was 15.[1][3] Influenced by beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, as well as jazz, folk, country, and show tunes, Friedman moved in Los Angeles circles with figures such as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s, even being considered briefly as a lead singer for the latter.[3][4]
Her breakthrough came with "Windy," penned in about 20 minutes as an ode to an idealized free-spirited partner and featuring distinctive recorder and harmony elements; as one of the few women to write a number-one single in the rock era, it provided financial independence and marked her as a key contributor to 1960s pop.[2][3] Signed to A&M Records, she released the psychedelic folk single "Little Girl Lost-and-Found" with her short-lived group The Garden Club in 1967, produced by Curt Boettcher and Tommy LiPuma.[1] Her solo debut, the introspective folk album Constant Companion, followed in 1970 on Warner Bros./Reprise, drawing comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Linda Perhacs for its melodic vulnerability and poetic lyrics.[5][3] She also contributed songs to the 1971 cult film Peace Killers and briefly ventured into entrepreneurship with her Easy Writer Portable Stationery Kit invention.[3][4]
Hiatus and Later Revival
Following the release of her single "Carry On (Glittering Dancer)" in 1970, Friedman entered an extended hiatus from the music industry after a family tragedy involving her sister's suicide.[22][3] She shifted her focus to raising her children and personal pursuits, effectively pausing her professional career for over three decades.[3][23]Friedman's return began in 2006 with the reissue of her 1970 album Constant Companion by Water Records, which sparked renewed interest in her work. That same year, Water also released Hurried Life, a compilation of 15 previously unreleased demos, home recordings, and lost songs from 1965 to 1971 drawn from her personal archive.[20] In 2011, she issued the single "White Dove / Motorcycle Madness," featuring two unreleased studio tracks from 1970 produced by Van Dyke Parks and Kirby Johnson.[24]The year 2013 marked a significant resurgence with the release of , her first album of new material in over 40 years, containing 11 tracks that blended folk elements with mature songwriting, including contributions from Van Dyke Parks on piano and accordion.[25][3] Also in 2013, Now Sounds issued Windy, A Ruthann Friedman Songbook, an 18-track collection highlighting her compositions beyond her famous hit "Windy," featuring rare recordings and covers.[26]Friedman resumed local performances in the Los Angeles area, including shows at venues like Healing Force of the Universe in Pasadena in 2024. She appeared on the Vintage Annals Archive Podcast in March 2024, discussing her career and songwriting. She performed at the International Pop Overthrow festival in Los Angeles on August 3, 2025.[27]
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 25.00 to USD 44.52
