Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood: Recent Episodes
The 1937 Flood
Freebies from The 1937 Flood, West Virginia's Most Eclectic String Band! The Flood, the Original Old Boy Band, has been around since the 1970s playing their own brand of mountain music, from blues and jugband to swing and traditional folk. These podcasts feature Flood Freebies, recordings captured on the fly, as it were, at the Flood's weekly jam sessions
The sing-along — “if you know it, sing it!” as we say around here — is fundamental to folk music. As the folk music guiding spirit, Pete Seeger, once said, “I rather put songs on people’s lips than in their ears.” And for us, there’s no better sing-along than this tune, which the newest Floodster Jack Nuckols brought us about a year ago.
Danny Cox and Randy Hamilton brought us this tune a year or so ago and as it matures, it just keeps enriching The Flood’s bloodstream. And it’s right on target to be included on the new album when we start work on that in the coming months. It’s an old Doc Watson tune. Here’s the latest take from a recent rehearsal. It’s “Deep River Blues.”
Honestly, we don’t remember when we first started doing this song. It was back when we were youngsters at those good old folk music parties in the ‘60s. A decade later, the tune was firmly entrenched when The Flood came together. And we were still playing it in 2001 when we recorded our first album, on which it’s the closing track. That was a good call, because we often use this song to close out a show, since it gives everybody in the band one more solo before we call it a night, as you can hear in this take from last week’s rehearsal.
Newcomers here were surprised by last week’s podcast, which celebrated native West Virginians who became legendary jazzmen. “I’m sorry,” one of them said, “but to me the idea of West Virginia conjures up fiddles and banjos. I’ve never thought of it for jazz.” He’s forgiven for not realizing the diversity of the Mountain State’s musical tradition. For instance, this is the 100th birthday of the greatest jazz standards of all times, and it was written by Bluefield, WV, native son, Maceo Pinkard. Yes, she might have been a Georgia peach, but our Miss Brown was a West Virginia girl at heart!
Joining The Flood repertoire, some songs fit in right away, while others — like this 90-year-old Don Redmond classic — take a little time to settle in, but when they do, wow — they’re as comfortable as an old shoe.
Our latest iteration of this song has been eight years in the making. Randy Hamilton brought it to us in the spring of 2017 and had already worked out the basic arrangement in his head, but it took a while to get the instrumentation right. For instance, Jack Nuckols, whose drumming is so fundamental this track, didn’t arrive until a couple of years ago, about the same time that Charlie Bowen began learning a bit of banjo. Now Jack’s snare drum and Charlie's five-string could provide a little counterbalance to the sweet solos by Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair.
A lot of ghosts stalk our rehearsal room nowadays, but to a man they are a happy bunch of haunts. And we have table set aside for photos of all of our old band mates who have passed on. But more than mere pictures, it’s their music that keeps our old comrades alive. Here’s one of the late Dave Peyton’s favorite tunes that’s never left us since he first brought to this very room 20 years ago.
Danny Cox and Randy Hamilton do some serious gold mining in this old sweet song. This track opens with Charlie Bowen and Jack Nuckols laying down the basic melody and rhythm, and then just listen to Danny start spending out all the riches he’s found in those lovely old chords.
“The Andy Griffith Show” was always at its best when the music-loving Darling family rolled into town. Now, The Darlings were played for the real-life Ozark band, The Dillards. Here from last week’s rehearsal is Randy Hamilton leading us on our take of the Dillards’ greatest tune.
We first recorded this tune nearly a quarter of a century ago, a good old blues written in the 1930s by a Kentuckian named Teddy Darby.
Here’s a song that was born at jam sessions, with an infectious rhythm and a couple of funky chords that invite all kinds of improvisation. “Spooky” is the latest tune that Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox have brought to our band room, complete with those Classics IV lyrics.
Sometimes the only thing that will fit bill is a song from your youth. Here’s a tune we all heard growing up — Grandpa Jones’s theme song,
George Gershwin’s “Lady Be Good” has been in The Flood repertoire for nearly a quarter century, aut lately it’s taken on a new life ever since Danny Cox brought around a better bunch of chords. Listen to Dan and the guys just rocking the socks off the thing!
This old tune from the mid-1960s hadn’t been played in The Flood band room in more than a decade or so, but when it dropped in at last week’s rehearsal, it fit the moment as comfortably as a good old shoe.
You know when you’re driving in your car and surfing the stations on your radio, each one offering something bright and different. That always reminds me of a Flood rehearsal, as the band drifts from some old ’50s rock tune to a blues to a Dylan song to maybe…. well, listen here as Randy Hamilton reinvents this century-long tune, turning it into something as fresh and sweet as a summer breeze.
There are few sure things nowadays, but one thing we can guarantee is that somewhere in the Mountain State this song is being sung, whistled, hummed or at least thought of about every 15 minutes today. Happy West Virginia Day, y’all!
We just barely had a quorum on this particular evening — Sam and Jack were still on vacation — but Danny, Randy and Charlie held down the fort and, as we say around here, whenever three or more gather in its name, it’s The Flood.
It’s kinda hard to get a quorum in the band room when summer travel season rolls around. In fact, it’s been three weeks now since all five of us have been together. Here, from that session, was our bon voyage to each other.
The Flood has gone fully folkie on this one. Jack has switched from his snare and brushes to his fiddle and Charlie’s on the five-string. We’re paying tribute to Dave Van Ronk’s signature tune, which itself was built round a children’s play party song that known throughout the South for more than a century.
Nothing gets us all the the same page faster than a good old jazz standard from the 1930s.
Here’s our take on an artifact from the Cold War, a Russian melody that we learned when it made its debut on American radios in the 1960s.
There are a lot of train songs out there, but none of them will take us quite as far as this one. Come with us to where the Southern’ll cross the Yellow Dog!
Around here, the best night of the week is whatever night we’re all getting together to pick. Everyone always comes in the room ready to rock. But some nights? Well, those night swing even more than usual. Last week, for instance, Danny Cox seemed to have a whole barrel of new riffs to try out on his guitar, and Jack Nuckols was absolutely cooking on his snare and high-hat. And, man, but it seemed like Randy Hamilton was rocking before he even got his bass out of the case. Just listen to how Randy’s walking bass lines puts a strut and a glide in the great old Shelton Brooks tunes from the Roarin’ Twenties. Shoot, you can probably hear Charlie grinning while he's singing.
Charlie first heard this centuries-old fiddle tune 50 years ago when an old friend Jim Strother played it with our favorite local string band, the good old Kentucky Foothill Ramblers. He couldn’t imagined The Flood ever playing it. However, a year or so ago, when he started studying the five-string banjo, the same old tune came rolling back in his brain. About the same time, Jack was dusting off his fiddle, and they worked it up together and then they taught it to Danny and Randy and Sam, who added their own sweet touches, and now the tune is a cool change of pace at our weekly rehearsals.
Thirty years ago, when the band first started doing this song, The Flood was back to being a trio of the original guys — Dave Peyton, Joe Dobbs and Charlie Bowen — and often on rehearsal night, the only listener in the room would be Dave’s sweet wife, Susan. At the end of the evening, when they’d ask Susie what last song she’d like to hear, it was almost always this wonderfully sad French Canadian tune, one that she remembered hearing 20 years earlier down in Louisiana when she and David and young Davy lived in Cajun country. We lost Susan three years ago this summer. This one’s for you, dear heart.
After we Floodified a version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” earlier this year, we started looking around for another Eagles tune we might bring into the repertoire. That’s when Randy Hamilton stepped up and said, “I might have one.” The old Eagles song “Love Will Keep Us Alive” is his sister’s favorite tune — in fact, Randy sang it at her wedding a while back — and when he started singing for us, it just naturally slipped into a Flood groove. Here from last week’s rehearsal is Randy leading the way!
It was towards the end of a rollicking rehearsal, when between songs the guys start talking about what they plan to do in the week ahead. Danny mentions that he’d been getting out to take his walk in the mornings before the heat sets in. That prompts Charlie to start singing that old Fats Domino song, “I’m walkin’, yes, indeed, and I’m talking’….” Danny — who by anybody’s definition is a walking jukebox — starts playing the old tune. Sam and Jack immediately pick up the vibe. Charlie reaches for the banjo to add a little pepper to the plot as Randy starts searching his memory bank for the words and melody — and suddenly the song seems to be arranging itself.
Dave Peyton and Charlie first heard this great old Charlie Poole song back in the mid-1970s when they were lucky enough to regularly sit in with the good folks of The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers. That band’s founder — H. David Holbrook — was already a walking/talking encyclopedia of old-time music and taught us so many of those good old tunes. So it was only natural when The Flood got re-energized 30 years ago, this old tune was on the playlist. And it still is!
Some nights are just magical, when everything we do — even a hundred-year-old song — seems suddenly fresh and new.
Having known each other since high school, Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox have a bond and shared musical instincts that bring lots of riches to our room. Whenever Dan and Randy put a song to the table — as they did last week with this simply gorgeous old Neil Young classic — they have usually already worked out the arrangement. It’s ready for the rest of us to just jump on board and ride!
Whenever we played this song back in the day, Joe Dobbs used to say, “I love those chords you found!” It’s true that the simplified country version that Joe grew up hearing was a little boring, but when The Flood started playing “Careless Love,” we dug around to find what Joe like to call “those Nawlins chords” that were favored by the early jazz bands who also played it.
Randy Hamilton and Charlie Bowen have been doing this old song for a dozen years or more, but “My Blue Heaven” also gets a facelift when new people join the band. Just listen to the 2024 version of the song and to what Danny Cox and Jack Nuckols have brought to this great old jazz standard from the Roarin’ Twenties.
This century-old tune has New Orleans written all over it. We just love how it always settles into a groove on any sultry summer night. Click the pic to check it out!
This song has been floating around in the Floodisphere for nearly 50 years. Nowadays, it’s not often on the set list at the band’s shows, but it almost always comes back at Flood reunion, and we had a wonderful reunion last week. Michelle Hoge, “the chick singer,” drove in from Cincinnati. Bub — Dave Ball — was up from Florida. Old friends like Jim Rumbaugh, Karen Combs and Doug Imbrogno came by. And everybody was singing and playing along with this one from last week’s rehearsal.
This wonderfully zany old tune from the late Roarin’ Twenties is a song in search of a comedy routine — and in this track from last week’s rehearsal, we certainly try to do our part. Right from the start, Danny Cox adds guitar accents that would be at home in a Spike Jones arrangement, then Jack Nuckols switches from his usual cool brushes and snare to those funky old wooden spoons, and suddenly the joint is jumpin’.
Playing this century-old tune from W.C. Handy became the late Doug Chaffin’s favorite way to end of a picking session. And we’re continuing our old buddy’s tradition, as demonstrated in this track from last week’s rehearsal. This one’s for you, Mister Chaffin! It’s that one about the dog…
Rehearsals are not parties. They can be fun and satisfying, but the bottom line is that rehearsals are work sessions. The Flood is always trying to learn new songs — or give a new spin to an old one — and because that’s where the songs are worked out, some rehearsals are more fun than others. So we usually try to end the evening on a high note. At one such rehearsal recently, Charlie asked if anybody had a tune they wanted to end with. “How about something we know!” said Danny Cox with a chuckle and a grin. In a minute we’d rolled into the 1930s standard “Moonglow” and it turned out to be our favorite moment of the whole night. Give it a listen.
Some songs turn up at the beginning of a Flood night and gauge the energy in the room. Others — like this one — usually come at the end of the evening and give everybody one last blast before they pack up and head for home. And oh, be sure listen all the way to the end of this track so you’ll catch Sam St. Clair’s special end-of-tune sound effects. We think you’ll find they’re right on the nose!
When Jack Nuckols joined the band late last year, we knew his dynamic drumming would bring spark and sparkling to our jazzy repertoire, but we also had a secret agenda. We were hoping we could also persuade Jack to dust off that fiddle he last played…. oh… 20 years ago so he could bring it to bear on our for folkier numbers. Well, he’s not only done that, Jack’s started suggesting tunes that would fit his fiddling. Here’s one, a great old Ohio River tune from the pen of folk composer Dillon Bustin.
We rolled into the West End last Sunday to play at a lovely picnic celebrating the 90th anniversary of Huntington’s beloved Sacred Heart church. For that do, we wanted to supplement our usual musical fare with a health supply of religious numbers. Topping the list was one of the oldest tunes in our repertoire.
Some tunes have really deep roots in the Floodisphere. The late Joe Dobbs loved this song. In fact, Charlie Bowen remembers jamming on this one in Joe’s music shop on its original West 14th Street location in the late ‘70s. It’s also the first song that the great Doug Chaffin played with us a quarter of a century ago. And Sam St. Clair still talks about Chuck Romine loving it; ol’ Doctor Jazz sure did tear it up on his tenor banjo. Now Sam and Charlie have introduced it to a whole new generation of Floodsters — just listen to Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox and Jack Nuckols rocking on “Somebody Stole My Gal!”
We are big fans of Kentucky singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton. Our Randy Hamilton brought us this poignant song about seven years ago. Lately it’s been back in the repertoire, with Danny Cox doing double duty, singing harmony to Randy’s lead vocala and trading solos with Sam St. Clair, all framed by Jack Nuckols’ tasteful drumming and Charlie Bowen’s little bit of banjo.
Occasionally, we do originals. Here’s a silly, happy little song that Charlie Bowen wrote 30 years with the idea that The Flood would play it someday. And we from time to time we have. But it turns out the tune was really waiting for today’s configuration of players, for Jack Nuckols and Randy Hamilton’s rocking rhythm and for those scintillating solos by Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair.
Rehearsal is always important, of course, but sometimes leaving a song alone for a while also has interesting effects. It’s been probable a year or more since this Ray Charles classic made an appearance at a Flood rehearsal. But it turns out the song hasn’t been stagnating. It was obvious when the song finally did roll around again, it had been percolating in everyone’s memory and all kind of exciting new ideas came out in the solos.
It’s funny sometimes how songs come to us. A while back Charlie was just noodling with his new resonator guitar while waiting for a phone call and suddenly he landed on chords from a song he’d not even heard for decades, much less played. A week later he’s sharing it with the guys at a rehearsal, and they latch on to the sound too. And just like that, a song comes soaring in from the Seventies.
This is a tune that our Flood brother Danny Cox brought to the mix. In fact, with a chuckle, he said, “I can’t believe y’all weren’t already doing this one.” True enough. “After You’ve Gone” was one that got away — until recently, when Danny corralled it and brought it to the table.
Recently Charlie brought a different version to this great old English ballad for the guys to try out after revisiting his all-time favorite rendition of it, Tom Rush’s recording of the tune on the old Prestige/Folklore label back in 1963.
Ours is a band that was born at a party and born TO party. Whether we’re at home in our band room at the Bowen House, settled in the living room of somebody else’s house or on stage at a gig, the party tradition that started more than a half century ago continues today. And our next opportunity for a public party will be this very weekend when we launch the Spring Floodango this Sunday afternoon at Huntington’s Alchemy Theater. Here’s a tune we have on tap for the afternoon. Take a listen and you’ll be ready for the sing-alongs when you join us at Alchemy Theater!
Our friend David Click told us recently how much he enjoys the band’s performance of this tune. He said that while it’s a sad song, he’s found a solace in the lyrics, that it touches him especially in times of loss and grief. We understand; it moves us that way too. For instance, this particular performance comes from back in November at the first rehearsal after we learned of the death of our band mate Doug Chaffin. Doug loved this song, and you might be able to hear this this track how we felt somehow a little closer to him, to be singing this song in his memory on that cold autumn night.
Some songs just never get old. Here’s a rowdy tune that had already been around for while when Grandpa was a pup and today, well, it’s still pretty sassy, with a cut in its strut and a glide in its stride. It’s the kind of song we like the start the evening with, as we did here at last week’s rehearsal, because it has room for everyone to just stretch out and wail. Listen as the solos pass from Danny to Sam to Randy. And when it’s Jack’s turn, he reaches for those wooden spoons he keeps near his drum kit. See if it doesn’t sound like a jazzy tap dancer has just jumped into the room. So here we go. Set your time machine back to 1913.
To give this classic from the 1970s a new sound, the guys let my banjo happily trot alongside Jack’s drum and Randy’s bass, ready to frame our vocals and those sweet solos by Danny and Sam. And, hey, be sure to keep listening to reach our surprise ending. We wrap up with a bit of old-time music, a little sumpin-sumpin circa 1680.
This rowdy old tune has been rattling around in our brain for a quarter quarter or so — ever since the late Joe Dobbs gave us tapes of some little-known blues records from the 1920s and ’30s — but only recently did it finally pop up in the The Flood’s repertoire.
Some songs in our repertoire we do only when “The Chick Singer” — Floodster emerita Michelle Hoge — is in the room. Our take on this good old Ivory Joe Hunter classic is at the top of that list. This track is from last December when Michelle had driven in from her Cincinnati area home to rehearse with us in preparation for our big “Flood at 50” New Year’s Eve birthday bash at Alchemy Theatre. Just listen to Michelle rocking those vocal harmonies, as always.
You never really forget the songs of your youth. Charlie was 10 years old in the summer of ‘59 when this tune hit the radio. It was such a hoot to take it for a spin at a recent Flood rehearsal.
We’re late to the party on this tune. Bob Dylan wrote this more than a quarter of century ago, but we just started doing it a few weeks ago. However, it’s suddenly landed solidly in the repertoire. Here’s our take on “Make You Feel My Love.”
We’ve been doing this song for a very long time, and it’s always different, depending on who’s in the room. In this rendition from a rehearsal a few weeks ago, our man Danny Cox makes it special with his signature guitar stylings.
The Flood has been doing versions of this song for decades. This rendition was the first song of the evening at a Flood rehearsal a few weeks ago. Riding on the infectious rhythm laid down by Randy Hamilton and Jack Nuckols and framing the solos by Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair, the number heralded a particularly fun evening at the Bowen house.
This song took a very long road on its journey to Floodlandia. The first time it was played in our band room was more than a dozen years ago on a mellow autumn night when our friends Randy Hamilton and Paul Martin dropped in to jam with us. Now, neither was a member of The Flood yet — Randy would join the following year and Paul a few years after that — but their song was the hit of the evening. However, the tune never worked its way into the repertoire — until just recently. A couple of weeks ago, Danny Cox just happened to start picking the tune between songs on the night’s practice list and the melody really jingled in our memories. After that, Dan and Randy got together to woodshed a little, working out an arrangement, and at last week’s rehearsal they popped it on the rest of us. With joy, everybody joined in.
“Sweet Georgia Brown” entered The Flood’s repertoire soon after the band began in the 1970s and in the ensuing decades the tune has come back into the playlist again and again, serving as a sweet showcase for dozens of Flood soloists over the years. This latest rendition, recorded at a rehearsal just last week, has Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton, Sam St. Clair and Jack Nuckols all taking the tune for a spin.
It was 15 years ago when Sam St. Clair brought us this tune, and it quickly became his theme song. Ever since then, “Ain’t No Free” has been a beloved standard in many a Flood show. So, of course, the song had to have a place in honor several weeks ago at our big New Year’s Eve birthday bash at Alchemy Theatre.
Here’s a tune with some mighty deep roots in the Floodisphere. Two decades after our heroes, The Coasters, released this song in July 1957, The Flood started fiddling with it on another summer night. After that, though, it went to sleep again for, oh, a half century or so. Then not long ago, it popped back into our minds. Right away, Randy Hamilton started singing harmony on the chorus. Suddenly the song is back, evolving into a fine vehicle for Jack Nuckols’ cool drumming and tasty solos by Danny Cox and everyone else in the room. Even visiting pickers. For instance, on this track, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin dropped in with his mandolin. Just listen to how slowly he jumped right into the mix!
Whenever our old friend Paul Martin is back in the room — or, better still, on the bandstand with us, as he was for our big “Flood at 50” big birthday bash — we always get him to take us on a ride on is favorite Bob Dylan tune.
Ever since it came together decades ago, The Flood has always sought a rich diversity in its repertoire. So late last year when Danny Cox asked, “Has the band ever done the song ‘Sunny’?” he heard an invitation in the enthusiasm of the answer: “no.” So, Danny worked out the chords, Jack took up the rhythm, we turned the vocals over to Randy, and suddenly the song is in the works. In fact, it’s even picking up fans among the visitors. On this particular track, for instance, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin happened to be in the room and happily took a ride on one of the choruses. Here’s the progress report, then, on Project Sunny.
Here’s a tune we always trot out whenever we feel a party coming on. So you can bet we’ll have it on the set list this weekend for our big “Flood at 50” birthday bash on New Year’s Eve at Alchemy Theatre. That’s a night we’re so eager for that we actually started putting this song through its paces earlier this month. For instance, here’s our take on the tune from a joyous night at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland just a few weeks ago. Remember, we’re at Alchemy Theatre this Sunday night, 69 Holley Avenue in the beautiful hills of Huntington, WV. The birthday bash starts at 7:30 and runs all the way to the champagne toast to the new year at midnight. All the details are on our new website: Floodat50.com. Come on out. We’re going share memories — and make a whole bunch of new ones!
Okay, we have a Christmas confession to make. Honestly, we don’t really care that much for Christmas music. Oh, we’re not scrooges or anything — well, a few of us are — but it’s mainly it’s just the nature of Christmas songs themselves. The chord patterns are not especially easy to remember and since you only them for a week or two every year, you don’t ever get a chance to get cozy with them. Plus, well, frankly Christmas tunes generally don’t swing. (Try to put a beat behind “Little Town of Bethlehem” and there will be repercussions….) But here’s one that does fit the Flood groove nice, especially with the merriest of our merry band — Danny Cox and Floodster Emeritus Michelle Hoge — leading the way. We hope you DO have yourself a merry little Christmas.
When we roll in tomorrow night for our latest gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky., we’re bringing with us one of our all time favorite party tunes. The song we call “You Got Me Slippin’” is loosely based on a classic Jimmy Reed tune from 65 years ago at the dawn of rock ’n’ roll.
Nominally, this is a traditional song about abandoned love, but back in the 1960s when she reworked it, the late Jean Ritchie wrote new lyrics that went well beyond that to the larger theme of loss in general. Because of those deeper expressions, The Flood has often thought of this tune in times of our darkest grief, and we’ve even sung it at more than one graveside. So, it’s only natural for us to be thinking of it again these days with death of our own dear companion, Doug Chaffin. He absolutely loved playing this song. So, here’s to you, Doug.
We started doing the song in the mid-1990s, right after we heard it on a then-new Bob Dylan album. We were looking for an easy, happy little tune that we can warm up on, letting everybody just stretch out a little. Well, nowadays it just as likely to turn up as a last song of the night — as it was here at a recent rehearsal — putting a bow on a great evening of music.
It’s a kind of counter-love song — a great anthem to angst — and George Gershwin’s “But Not For Me” was ahead of its time. He and his brother Ira wrote the thing in 1930 for a popular stage musical called “Girl Crazy.” But it didn’t make the Billboard charts until a dozen years later — after George’s death, in fact — when Harry James and his orchestra got to Number 12 with it. Last week was The Flood’s first fling with the tune. See what you think.
Charlie played this song for Dave Peyton on the first night they jammed together at a New Year’s Eve party 50 years ago. It was the one of the best tunes in their repertoire for their earliest gigs. After that, though, the song dropped out of the mix for many decade, but the one night this fall — help! — it came wandering back. On this track from a recent rehearsal, Charlie’s on banjo, Jack’s on bongos, Randy’s singing harmony and Danny’s playing those sweet, sweet solos.
We have several new tunes to bring tomorrow night for our latest gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky., including this one that the great Ray Henderson wrote almost a hundred years ago. This song was first recorded by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra in the mid-1920s, but its real claim to fame came 15 years later when it was the title tune for a beloved Bing Crosby movie that was released on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. Here’s “Birth of the Blues.”
Well, this has been Bowen’s “Banjo Summer.” In early June, he dropped in to visit Paul Callicoat at Route 60 Music and, on a whim, Charlie traded an old guitar he had for a shiny new five-string that he spied on the wall there. Charlie didn’t know a thing about banjo, but he started watching some videos he found on YouTube from the remarkable Dr. Josh Turknett and his “Brainjo Academy.” He practice a bit every day and has been having an absolute ball. Now, we don’t think he’ll ever been an especially proficient player — honestly, banjo seems to be something you could study the rest of your life and still have more to learn — but… well, we remember a line in an old song that said, “I can be the doctor ’til the doctor comes…” We think the same could be said about banjo players. Here, from a recent rehearsal, was Charlie’s first bit of banjocity with the band, on a great old Tommy Thompson tune.
We always try to have a few novelty tunes in our back pocket to lighten the mood at shows — or just to amuse ourselves at the weekly rehearsals. And this one, of course, is how we get all that big grant money, because it’s about history. Well, sort of…. There is some dispute about whether George Washington actually played the ukulele, but we do think it may have known a few red-hot mamas…
This song has marvelous lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer, as Floodster Emerita Michelle Hoge demonstrates whenever she’s in the room. But she’s not here to sing it, the song also is an extraordinary vehicle as an instrumental. Here from last week’s rehearsal, Danny Cox lays down a lovely melody, then his old friend and our guest for the evening — Bob Murnahan, in town for a visit from his Colorado home — takes a couple of choruses to mine gold in all those cool chords.
Twenty years ago this summer, we were in the midst of planning our third studio album, when our friend and producer, the late George Walker, showed up with a rare Cootie Williams recording. George thought this novelty tune would a good fit for us. We fell in love with it and learned it in time for the recording session. Ever since then, whenever this song comes to mind, as it did at a recent Flood rehearsal, our thoughts race back to our good times with you, George.
For this old folk song, we follow the well-established narrative about a love affair that goes tragically wrong, but we take a lot of liberties with the traditional melody. Well, our unique tune goes back the very beginnings of The Flood. When Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen were just starting out as a duet a half century ago, they found that odd string of chords seem to set just right with their simple guitar and Autoharp accompaniment. Since then over the years, every configuration of The Flood has found something new to add to that basic original arrangement. And it’s still happening. Just listen to this take from last week’s Flood rehearsal and to what Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair have contributed with their solos.
This song has been in The Flood’s repertoire for about 30 years now. Early on, it was an instrumental showcase for Joe Dobbs’ fiddle. Then about a decade or so, it was part of Michelle Hoge’s remarkable songbag of ballads and swing tunes. Lately, Randy Hamilton has taken over the lead vocals. On this track from last week’s rehearsal, Charlie Bowen brings a little harmony and Danny Cox finds all kinds of interesting opportunities for guitar goodies in those cool old chords.
Roger Samples and Charlie Bowen worked out our arrangement of this old tune about 50 years ago. We sang and played it at many parties and jam sessions, but then it remained retired for the next three or four decades. That is until one night this summer when the tune popped into Charlie’s mind during a weekly rehearsal. Right away, Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton and Sam St. Clair jumped in and gave new life to an old number.
When we roll into Sal’s Speakeasy tomorrow night for our monthly gig, we’ll be bringing with us a tune that has been rocking audiences for more than eight decades. And that, brothers and sisters, is the definition of a hit! It’s a Duke Ellington composition that was given a whole new lease on life through some evocative lyrics by the great Bob Russell.
“Bright Star” — the musical in which we’ve been honored to be perform as the house band this summer — wraps up this weekend, and we’ll be performing the last of our nightly pre-shows starting this evening. For our little pre-show sets, we’ve sought out old folk songs that complement the play’s new original music. Here’s the song we like to end our set with, a rollicking, silly number about a ramblin’ rascal named Buster. We learned it from a 1920s recording by the great Charlie Poole, but the song actually dates back the late 19th Century.
We in The Flood are honored and thrilled to be invited by Mike Murdock and Nora Ankrom to be part of their brilliant Alchemy Theater production of the new musical, “Bright Star.” This evening is opening night, where we join the extraordinary Mark Smith and John Kinley in the show’s house band. In addition, Mike and Nora have asked The Flood to do a few songs in a pre-show at each performance. Now, since trains play such an important part in the “Bright Star” story, we’ll certainly be including this one, perhaps the greatest train song of all times.
“The folk process” is a term that Charles Seeger came up with to describe the tendency of songs to change a little — or a lot — as they are passed from person to person over the years. It’s a process that greatly pleases us in The Flood, because we’ve always done everything we can to put our own stamp on every song we do. Here, for instance, it’s no real secret that our version of this tune has only a nodding acquaintance with the original that the great Elizabeth Cotten wrote with her grandchildren some 60 years old. It grew out of a recent Flood jam at which a riff Charlie started noodling with on his new resonator guitar had him remembering that old Fred Neil take on the Libba Cotten song. In a flash, Dan and Sam were bringing their own magic to the moment.
In the summer of 1963, a young Ironton, Ohio, native named Bobby Bare walked into the RCA Victor studio and recorded what would become the best-selling single of his long career, his poignant rendition of “500 Miles Away from Home.” Now 60 years later, here’s The Flood’s tribute to Bobby and that folk music classic.
In Danny Cox’s world, two household gods are Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed, and both of those two legendary guitarists were responsible for this showcase tune. Here, from a recent rehearsal, is Danny’s take on Jerry Reed’s 1968 instrumental classic, “Drive In.”
The Flood started playing this tune a quarter of a century ago, and it’s had a wide variety of arrangements over the years. In this latest version, Randy Hamilton is doing double duty. Not only does Randy take over the vocals, but his sweet, soulful bass lines set the mood for the whole thing, inspiring equally introspective solos by Sam St. Clair and Danny Cox. Here’s “Summertime,” 2023.
We always have fun at the rehearsals with these sassy old songs, and sometimes they even create their own little legacies. Here’s a case in point. Midway through this track from a recent session, you’ll hear a bit of a crash, like the sound of something hitting the floor — and that’s just what it is. A while back, The Flood’s ever-jolly den mother, Rose Riter, gave us some nifty bird-in-flight figurines that we put around the practice room. For years the birds have quietly kept their posts, but on this particular night, something about the vibrations in the room caused… well…. take a listen!
The Flood’s eclectic repertoire can routinely pivot from an R-rated blues or hokum tune to a some sweet family-friendly ballad. Even a lullaby might pop up from time to time, like this lovely Irish melody. And we toss in the banshee for free!
One of the song we’ll be bringing to Sal’s Speakeasy for this weekend’s gig was a monster hit on the radio in the early 1960s. But actually it was written almost a hundred years ago, an iconic jug band tune of the era. Here’s our take on “Walk Right In.”
We first started doing this song more than 40 years ago, and since then, every configuration of The Flood has made its own version of “The Dutchman.” Lately we’ve tried something news, adding a bit of banjo to the accompaniment. Tell us what you think about that. And don’t hold back, now. One thing we’ve learned about banjos — they’re used to some fairly brutal criticism!
Our approach to this old prison work song is different from most. We take our inspiration from a creative version that singer Eric von Schmidt recorded back in 1961. For us, Ric’s melody not only gives Danny, Sam and Randy a lot of room for imaginative soloing, but also an opportunity for vocal harmonies at the end of each verse. This, then, is The Flood’s version of “Lazarus.”
Randy Hamilton brought us this song. Not long ago, he and his buddy, Flood guitarist Dan Cox, came in the room on a rainy night like last night, sat down, tuned up, and almost immediately the song fell into a groove. Along with Danny, Sam St. Clair found a special voice for soloing, and “Good Time Charlie,” with Randy’s lead vocals, landed solidly in our repertoire.
We always try to come up with a couple of new tunes for our monthly gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland. Here’s the latest, with Randy rock solid on that harmony and he, Sam and Danny just cooking on the solos. It’s our take on “Deep Ellum Blues.”
Danny Cox learned his version of the song from a recording by his hero Chet Atkins on his 1965 More of That Guitar Country album. This is a Flood track recorded at a recent gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky. Here you’ll hear Dan and harmonicat Sam St. Clair trading choruses on the tune as we call folks back to the bandstand to begin our second set
Pamela Bowen has been our band manager for more than 20 years now, and she is a major influence on all things Flood, from the venues we visit to the tunes we play when we get there. So recently when Pamela suggested we augment the roots music portion of our repertoire with some classic old-time rock, we started casting our thoughts back to the tunes that rocked our youth, like this from 1956.
If you hang out with The Flood much, it seems like everything we do is carefully planned …. right…. but actually, accident and happenstance are a couple of our good friends. For instance, earlier this week we got together to plan for our show tonight at Sal’s Speakeasy. Now, as you’ll hear in this track, between songs Charlie starts singing a bit of this old 1920s hokum song. Immediately, Randy jumps in with some cool harmony. Then Sam brightens it up with his harmonica and Danny puts a bow on the whole thing with a cookie’ guitar part and just like that the tune has inserted itself into the set list.
Before we played this song at a recent rehearsal, we had a bit of conversation about all the more raucous renditions of “Corrina, Corrina” of our youth (and mom and dad’s youth…. of grandma’s youth…) But then when we kicked off the song, we all just naturally dropped into that bluesy, moody groove that Bob Dylan established for it 60 years ago. This is our first take on the tune, but it feels like it’s campaigning to be a regular in our repertoire.
The Flood started doing this song about 1979, right after Roger Samples and Charlie Bowen learned it from a beloved album, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, released in 1976.Rog always said he thought the melody was buried in the very genes of Irish people, adding, “Every time we do that song, I feel like the ghosts of my ancestors come into the room!” "Salley Gardens"has been in The Flood’s repertoire ever since, even tucked away among the tunes the band recorded on its first album two decades ago. This current version — with solos by Dan Cox and Sam St. Clair — was recorded in a recent jam session just to be our gift today. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!
When the brilliant Dan Cox joined The Flood Fold last year, one of the first tunes he and his buddy, veteran Floodster Randy Hamilton, brought to the mix was “Windy and Warm.” While most of this take is all about Danny’s pitch-perfect picking, it also features Randy and Dan vocalizing at one point, a moment that you can hear being happily applauded by Charlie.
The Flood has been doing versions of this great old song from its earliest days nearly a half century ago. Literally. It was the first song that the late Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen tried at a New Year’s Eve party in 1973 where the band was born. The tune has come back in every iteration of The Flood and it has never sounded better than this latest version, with Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair double-dipping on the solos and Randy Hamilton singing all that rock-solid harmony. Here’s “Solid Gone.”
We're excited to be coming back to Sal's Speakeasy in Ashland this Friday night, and, best of all, The Chick Singer is back! Yes, Floodster Emerita Michelle Hoge (whom the late Joe Dobbs christened "da chick singer" years ago) will be coming in from Cincinnati with her husband Rich just to sit in with her old band mates for the evening. It's going to be epic! We'll be playing from 6 to 9 p.m. Here's one of the tunes we have for the set list.
It all began when Charlie took his first stumbling steps — slipping and a-sliding, as it were — in learning some bottleneck technique on his new resonator guitar. Right away, it reminded him of a gospel tune from his youth, but he just couldn’t seem to get it down. Then Danny came along, took one listen and started just naturally channeling an old Doc Watson cum Chet Atkins vibe, laying down an absolutely rock solid foundation. Sam grabbed his “E” harp and found his groove, Randy jumped in with some beautiful harmony for the choruses, and suddenly “I Am a Pilgrim” landed righteously in the repertoire.
The Flood’s take on this century-old happy, naughty good-time tune of the Roarin’ Twenties owes much to the song’s re-arousal by the string bands of the 1960s. Our version borrows the great Jim Kweskin jug band’s idea of blending the tunes with the Louis Armstrong standard of the same era, “Heebie Jeebies.” And in this track, while everybody brings great solos, we all agree that it’s Danny — our newest Floodster — who, as Sam says, “becomes one with Sister Kate.”
In music, newness is often a magical ingredient, and everything about this song is new. It all started when Charlie brought home yet another new guitar, this time a sweet little Gretsch resonator that he’ll brought always keep in one open tuning or another Playing around with it in Open D, he landed on this old Jackson Browne tune he remember from the early 1970s that just seemed to lay so easily on the strings. Well, the song was new to Danny and Randy, but true to their Flood nature, they took to it right away, immediately finding ways to enrich it. Listen to Dan’s brilliant solos and Randy’s gorgeous harmonies on the choruses.The arrangement is still evolving, but we wanted to share it here while it still had that new song smell.
This song pretty much languished in a desk drawer for the past 40 years, ever since Charlie wrote it back in the 1970s. Only recently, as the latest configuration of The Flood started exploring original compositions, did he even think of seeing if it might want a new life. But wow! He was really moved by how this sensitive re-imagining of the tune by these good people has made the song feel right at home in the 21st century.
"Misty" has worn many hats in the Floodisphere. Back in the 1970s, it was a Ray Stevens-style campy instrumental for Joe and Rog. Then a few decades later, it became a sultry vocal standard for Michelle. Nowadays the song has returned to its original instrumental roots as a showcase for Vanessa and Danny. This take, from a rehearsal last month, is a classic jazz vehicle, starting with Veezy’s elegant statement of the melody, followed by her and then Dan exploring remarkable nuance among all those lovely Erroll Garner chords.
Now, the older we get, the more we bristle at that thing we used to say each new year. You know, that “out with the old, in with the new” business? Well, we’re sure glad no one ever applied that silly rule to this great old song. The tune might be 150 years old, but it still righteously rocks, as we testify here with swinging solos from everybody in the band!
Last week was our first outing on this great old jazz standard. When we started it, Veezy said she wasn’t sure she was familiar with it. By the time we finished it, it sounded like she wrote it herself!
Christmas is a time of tradition and what says tradition better than an ancient melody that has been associated with the gentle Yuletide season for centuries?
Whenever Charlie’s cousin Kathy Castner comes for a visit from her Cincinnati home, they sing, and their musical connection goes back a long way. As a child, Kathy regularly visited relatives in Ashland. Whenever she did, her grandmother often assigned Charlie to sing her to sleep at her bedtime. One of the tune he brought to bear on the little girl’s eyelids was this New Christy Minstrels classic — “Today (While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine)” — and they’re still singing all these decades later. Here, from Kathy’s visit with the Family Flood last week, is the latest rendition, with sweet solos by Dan, Veezy and Sam and with Randy joining Kathy and Charlie on the harmonies.
Christmas songs abound right now, but how about a tune for the downtrodden holiday shopper, the weary wielder of a maxed-out debit card? Well, your friends in The Flood can’t pick up the tab, but we can at least give you a blues to suit your mood, brought to you from a recent gig. After a day of rushing around spending money you don’t have buying things people don’t want, just take our advice: If you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind! For more on the song, see our free newsletter:
https://1937flood.substack.com/p/if-you-lose-your-money
Every configuration of The Flood — from the present all the way back to 1976 in our foggy ruins of time — has done its own variation of this happy bit of hokum. And each version, in its way, has been a loving tribute to our heroes in the original Memphis Jug Band of the 1930s. This latest rendition, recorded at a recent gig, offers wonderful solos and fills by everyone in the band. Shoot, even the grins and the winks seem to come through in this track.
You can learn about how versatile a band is by listening to its handling of instrumentals. Without the poetics of the lyrics or the theatrics of the singer, it’s up to the soloists to bring drama to the song. To hear what we mean, listen to this four-minute track from a recent Flood show. Vanessa Coffman opens the action with her tasteful statement of Fats Waller’s melody, “Honeysuckle Rose.” Then about a minute in, she begins to weave and spin brilliant new threads on that old familiar frame with her tenor sax, beautiful work that then inspires her bandmate, guitarist Danny Cox, when he follows with some gorgeous strings of his own. Yes, Veezy and Danny bring the honey to this rose.
Danny and Randy brought us this song just a couple of weeks ago and in no time it became a rehearsal night favorite. Here’s our latest take on the tune, with Randy doing the honors on the vocals and everybody taking a turn on the solos.
We have a different kind of podcast this week. Recently, the band has been working on some original compositions. This particular melody is one I started writing with back in the late 1970s, but you know what? Even after 40 years, the thing still doesn’t even have a name. Figures, I guess, for a song that’s about … well, procrastination. Anyway, this week’s podcast invites you to eavesdrop as The Flood starts to craft an arrangement for this quirky little tune.
The weekly Flood rehearsal has always been an eclectic affair. A typical night will travel from old jazz standards of the 1930s and ‘40s with their flurry of quirky chords to little-known jug band tunes and blues. Maybe we’ll stop along the way to sample a few Flood originals that are still busy being born. And often, after all that musical wandering, we’ll end up back at some simpler folk song of our youth. Last week, for instance, the last tune of the evening was this haunting Perry County, Ky., composition that the great Jean Ritchie built on just two well-considered chords.
This song has been floating around the Floodisphere for many years, but it didn’t really take flight until Vanessa came along to blend it with a soulful Old World aire, and then Randy stepped up to take the lead on the vocals. Here, with pensive soloing by Dan and Sam, is our merging of the thoroughly American “Dink’s Song” with Scotland’s lovely “Loch Lomond.”
This tune really hasn’t made The Flood set list yet — we’ve only just started working with it — but it sure seems like it wants to settle down with us. Here listen to everybody listening to everybody else. For instance, midway through, check out how Veezy’s solo establishes a lovely mood which Danny then beautifully echos when he takes his turn. Yeah, it’s not a regular Floodified number yet, but, hey, stay tuned.
While Charlie has given his new banjo a nickname — it’s “Buzz Kill” to us in the Flood— the instrument actually does have its moments, especially when then tune on the table turns out to be of the old folksong variation. Here — as Danny, Randy, Sam and Charlie have a go at this classic Eric Andersen tune from the 1960s — the banjo brings a nice little trot.
When we first started fiddling with this tune, it didn’t seem to gel for us. But that was back before our brother Randy Hamilton returned to the fold after being gone for a couple of years. And lately, when we’ve discovered that it was one of Randy’s all-time favorite songs, we just turned the vocals over to him and suddenly “Moondance” has started finding its footing in The Flood. Here’s the latest rendition, with solos by the whole crew, Danny, Sam and Veezy.
Regular listeners love all those scintillating sax solos by Vanessa Coffman, and with good reason! For more than two years now, this talented 22-year-old has been rocking our repertoire. But member of the her Flood family know Veezy also is a fine singer, as demonstrated in this song that she has brought us earlier this year. Listen as Danny Cox leads us on beautifully framing this lovely vocal.
Our 2022 take of this old favorite was the very first tune we played on a happy summer evening at the Bowen House just few weeks ago. Veezy Coffman was just back from a month’s vacation with her family, and can’t you just hear how everyone in the room was so happy to be with her again?
For us, a perfect warmup song to get ready for an evening of music is one whose chords are familiar enough that we don’t have to think about them too hard, but also give us enough stretching out room so that we can just sit back and enjoy each other’s company. This happy tune from Grandpa’s day checks all the boxes.
Our old friend and band mate Dave Peyton is much on our mind today, because this is the second anniversary of his death.
We pay him tribute with a new take on an Aunt Jennie Wilson song that he brought us, gee, decades ago, a version that features Randy’s harmony vocals, and solos by Sam and by our newest Floodsters, Danny and Veezy, along with my first outing on banjo.
Yeah, everything old is new again and, while the lyrics might say that “Georgie Buck is dead,” darned if his song doesn’t seem more alive than ever.
Honestly, we don’t know how a band that’s been around for nearly half a century — one that has a special love for novelty and good-time tunes of the 1920s and ‘30s — could have ever missed this one, but the fact is it’s only recently that The Flood has been playing around with this classic from the Roarin’ Twenties. Guess it just took our newest members — Veezy Coffman and Danny Cox — to open our ears to it. And we’re sure glad they did.
This one has really deep roots. About 20 years after The Coasters released this song in 1957, The Flood started fiddling with it one fun summer night. After that, though, it went to sleep again for, oh, a half century or so. Then last winter, Randy started singing harmony with Charlie on the chorus and suddenly the song was back, evolving into a fine vehicle for cool solos by Danny, Veezy and Sam.
Back in the days when we would ride on — and occasionally even got to perform on — the good ol’ Delta Queen steamboat, it often meant a reunion with a dear friend, the boat’s band leader, the legendary New Orleans cornetist Connie Jones.
We learned “Memphis in June” from Connie. On his album, it was an instrumental, but whenever we’d ask for it on board the boat, Connie would sing it.
Here from a recent rehearsal is our take on the tune, conjuring up memories of sunny days up in The Delta Queen’s Texas Lounge, seeing Connie, eyes closed and grinning as he purred those sweet Paul Francis Webster lyrics. Here then, in memory of Connie Jones, is Hoagy’s sweet love song to summer.
This isn’t one of Hoagy Carmichael’s better known tunes, but it could easily become your favorite, especially this time of year. “Memphis in June” is a sweet love song to summer that is “peacefully dandy.”
Our buddy Doug Chaffin wasn’t feeling too swell earlier this week when Randy Hamilton, Danny Cox and Charlie Bowen landed on his doorstep. However, we brought with us a secret medicine just guaranteed to make him feel better. It’s Charlie’s new guitar, a sweet 2016 D’Angelico Excel — a hollow-body arch top jazz box, which we immediately put into Doug’s experienced hands. Well, after he’d strummed a chord or two, we could hear Doug already smiling behind his face mask. Listen to him just swinging in the living room on this great old jazz standard.
Nineteen years ago, when we went into the studio to record our third album engineered by the late, great George Walker, “Midnight Special” was the first number we laid down. After that, though, for some reason the tune just sort of drifted out of the collective consciousness. That is, until lately. Our old buddy, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin, has dropped into the jam sessions recently and it’s got us revisiting some of the good old folkier corners of our repertoire. Here’s a moment from a week or so ago.
We’ll be returning to one of our all-time favorite local venues next week, playing for the good folks up the hill at Woodlands Retirement Community. It’s a wonderful venue where we’ve played regularly for the past 20 years or more. And this time, our old buddy, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin, is back to sit in with us. Here’s one of the tunes we’re dusting off for the evening, you know, just in case Lulu is in the audience.
Over the years, many of renditions of this song have presented the tune slowly and deliberately, but that’s not our style. Anyone who knows us knows The Flood is not really dirge-friendly. In fact, years ago, our beloved co-founder Dave Peyton said that if The Flood had a spirit animal, it probably would be Leon Redbone. So, our take on “Am I Blue?” is how we imagine Brother Redbone would do it.
Can you ever hear someone smiling? Maybe. On this track, as we’re sitting around with one of the great Louis Armstrong’s favorite songs, “Dinah,” we bet you can hearing the grins going around the room as you listen to all the musical bantering, like Veezy playfully comping behind the vocals, and Danny’s happy passing chords under the solos. Joy has many expressions — and some of them just might be hummable.
We were already having a righteous good time at Doug Chaffin’s house earlier this week when suddenly in walked a young guitar player who would ratchet things up to a whole new level of coolness. Now, Josh Woods is old friend of our newest Floodster, Danny Cox, but it turns out his roots go even deeper than that. That’s because we learned that Doug Chaffin used to regularly jam with Josh’s dad, John Woods. Needless to say, there were lots of stories between the tunes, but let’s focus on the tunes. Here are Danny and Josh trading choruses on some classic blues, including our rendition of Ray Charles’s “Hard Times.”
It was a grand and goofy night at the Bowen house last night, full of stories and wisecracks and ambling down wondrous strange new musical pathways, turning up numbers like, well, this granddaddy of all things rock ’n’ roll that just came running out to greet us about mid-evening.
A fresh set of ears — especially if they’re as attuned as Veezy Coffman’s — can hear something new in something old. Just listen to all the new opportunities that Veezy’s tenor sax finds in this dusty old folk melody. And then listen to how that inspires Dan Cox and Sam St. Clair to new exploration in their own solos.
Throughout the winter and spring, our newest band mate, Danny Cox, has been having one-on-one weekly jam session with his old buddy, bassist Randy Hamilton, and sometimes they bring tunes they’ve work out to the regular weekly Flood rehearsal so the rest of us to get in on the fun. Now, over the the years, we’ve tried to work out a Flood arrangement of “Deep River Blues,” but it never really took, until recently when Randy and Danny brought in what they wrought. And as you can hear on this track, we’re all pretty excited about it.
Doug Chaffin has played a lot of instruments in his two decades with The Flood — bass, fiddle, mandolin — and put a guitar in his hands and it is likely this will be the first tune to bob to the surface. At a recent jam session at the Chaffin house, Veezy Coffman had just arrived and unpacked her horn when Doug launched into “Bye Bye Blues” just to celebrate the moment.
When The Flood first started doing this song more than 20 years ago, it was an instrumental for us with fiddler Joe Dobbs playing the lead. However, when Michelle started singing with us, she claimed “Moonglow” as she own, making her recording debut with it as “Michelle Walker” on our third album in 2003. And now that Michelle has moved on to start an exciting new chapter in her life as Mrs. Rich Hoge, “Moonglow” for The Flood has returned to its roots. Here, from a recent rehearsal, is a sweet instrumental rendition with Veezy Coffman, Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair finding new expression in this 90-year-old number.
We spent last night’s rehearsal polishing up the set list we’ll play at a very special event this weekend. We’ll be part of the wedding celebration near Cincinnati when Floodster Emeritus Michelle Lewis marries her beloved Rich Hoge. We’re invited to perform during the dinner tomorrow evening, and we can’t wait. We intend to open the set with this wonderful old happy anthem to love from the 1960s.
Most of what we played in Ashland last week was rather rollicking when we gathered to jam with our tribal elder, Doug Chaffin. However, whenever you get this bunch together, you can’t count on just one type of music. Here is the most mellow moment of the evening, with Veezy, Doug and Danny listening to each other on a whole ‘nother level.
Doctor Flood made a house call earlier this week. Our tribal elder, Doug Chaffin, has had a rough 2022 so far. Despite being double-vaxxed and boosted, Doug fought a rugged few rounds with Covid over the winter and he’s still recovering, so the Family Flood rode into Ashland last Tuesday night to visit him and Donna. The mission was to perk up their spirits, and, hey, we think the magic worked. Now, Doug has always liked this old W.C. Handy tune ever since we started doing it about a year ago, so it was only fitting to make it the centerpiece of our jam at the Chaffin house. Listen to Doug, Veezy and Danny just rocking the solos.
We could do Hoagy Carmichael tunes all night long — and, well, sometimes we pretty much do. Here, from last night’s Floodifying, is our latest take on a lesser known Carmichael work, Hoagy’s cool 1932 composition called simply “New Orleans.”
This song has been rattling around in the Floodisphere for a long time. Originally for us it was an instrumental. It became a Michelle Lewis special when the Chick Singer was still with the band. Then, when Michelle moved on, it looked like the tune might retire. But last night darned if it didn’t poke its head in the door and become of a fun vehicle for for Veezy and Sam in the solo space, and now… well, it appears “All of Me” is ready for another rebirth.
Last night we just barely had a quorum — about half the band had other obligations — but, as we always say around here, whenever two or three gather in its name, it is The Flood. And, as this will testify, Danny and Randy brought more than enough juice to power up the solos!
Earlier this week, when Veezy and Danny created their own thoughtful impressions of this old Appalachian tune, they were also communing with the spirit of a Floodster they never met. It was more than 40 years ago that the late Roger Samples sat down in the Bowens’ kitchen one hot summer’s night and strung together the chords that would become The Flood’s unique take on this tune. Wouldn’t Rog be smiling right about now, just knowing his ideas lives on?
This tune’s still relatively new for us, but last night we found the groove. Just listen to Randy’s heartbeat of a bass line under Charlie’s vocals as we pass it off for sensuous soliloquies by Veezy, Danny and Sam, a flowing sweet and earnest conversation among friends.
This tune, which only a few years older than our band, by all rights ought to be The Flood’s theme song. The fact is, though, we’ve been doing it only about a dozen years or so, which is — well, “yesterday,” in FloodSpeak — but since then, we have embraced it. And in this, our latest rendition, we’re loving how Danny Cox and Veezy Coffman are just owning it!
St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special time in the Floodisphere, and when it falls on our regular gathering night, well, the rehearsal turns into a bit of a céilí. Last night we brought out a number of rollicking tunes from the old sod, but evening ended on a quieter note, with this meditative old melody.
Danny Cox’s years of close attention to guitar greats like Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed has perfectly prepared him for this solid old song. And like his heroes, Dan is an innovator, not an imitator. Just listen as Danny crafts four — count ‘em, four! — choruses to this song, bringing fresh ideas to each one of them.
We’ve been doing this song for a dozen years of so, but it’s always new, depending on who’s on hand to handle the solos. Last night it was Veezy and Danny’s turn to find sweet new nuance in all those old familiar chords.
Now, we first started playing with this song about a year ago, but it’s been languishing for a while. It was just waiting for a blue and rainy evening like last night when Veezy, Danny, Randy and Charlie could revisit it. It sounds like it’s ready to be a regular in our repertoire now.
What a wonderful family the Coffmans are, a young household full of musicians and artists, students and teachers. We feel so fortunate to know them through the transformative music of their eldest. Each week 21-year-old Vaness Coffman’s playing takes our ears to brand new places. Now, when Veezy plays her solo jazz sets at venues around our area, she’ll often mentions that every member of her family has a favorite song, and if you’re lucky, she’ll play them for you sometime during that night. Well, high on our list from that collection is her mom’s favorite. Julianne Coffman teaches music in the Cabell County schools and her Veezy tune is this 1948 jazz standard by Sonny Burke. So here it is, from last night’s Flood gathering: “Black Coffee.”
The Flood learned its version of this tune from the great Jim Kweskin’s jug band and its 1966 album for Vanguard called “Relax Your Mind.” At last night’s Flood rehearsal, we were doing just that, thank you very much. Here we’ve got Randy Hamilton killing in on the harmonies and double dips of scintillating solos by Sam St. Clair and Danny Cox. As Jim Kweskin says, “I got mine — hope you got yours!”
If you were trying to make a graphic representation of a Flood rehearsal, your best model would probably be a crazy quilt. In the span of an hour or two, we go from rollicking jugband tunes and blues to re-imaged rock ’n’ roll classics of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And then suddenly: something completely different. Our Randy Hamilton has been doing “Wayfaring Stranger” for a while now, but it’s always changing, depending on what’s new in the room. This week that “new” was Randy’s old buddy Danny Cox — the two of them go back to high school days together! — who for the first brought his sweet, imaginative guitar work to the tune. Meanwhile, Veezy Coffman, who’s usually playing tenor, this time brought her big beautiful baritone sax to the session. Now, that bari can rock us to the very soles of feet, but here Veezy shows us that her horn always has a softer side. Just listen to how she weaves in and out of Randy’s haunting vocals and Danny’s enchanting chords.
Ask our bass player Randy Hamilton to name his best friends on the planet and somewhere near the very top of that list will be Danny Cox. Now, we’ve been hearing ABOUT this marvelous guitar player for years now. But last night we final got to actually hear him, and oh my! From his Ironton, Ohio, home on a cold winter’s night, Danny tagged along with Randy to the weekly Flood gathering and immediately really warmed up the place. Just listen to him and Veezy Coffman share choruses on this great old Mississippi Sheiks standard, “Sittin’ on Top of the World.”
Nineteen Twenty-Four was a golden year for George Gershwin. After more than a decade on pounding the pavement of New York’s Tin Pan Alley peddling his tunes, Gershwin composed his first major work — “Rhapsody in Blue” — and then that same year he and his brother, Ira, scored their first major hit on Broadway. The musical comedy “Lady Be Good,” which would run for more than 300 performances, was a showcase for a string of Gershwin brother collaborations, like “Fascinating Rhythm” and, of course, that phenomenal title tune. Now, that song — the perennial 1920s party tune, “Lady Be Good” — is a rarity among jazz standards in the Great American Songbook. Not many improvisational vehicles survived the transition from the loose Dixieland style of the “Roaring Twenties” to the smooth swing sound of the 1930s and beyond. But as everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé to Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Django Reinhardt would demonstrate, “Lady Be Good” has some serious legs. The Flood started doing the song 20 years ago — it’s features on our second album — and our love of the tune really began to blossom when Doug Chaffin switched from bass to guitar to take charge of the lead on the number. Then, good golly, it went into full flower more recently when Vanessa Coffman came along with her tenor sax. Here Doug and Veezy share choruses with Sam St. Clair on “Lady Be Good” at a recent rehearsal.
New Orleans jazz pioneer Richard M. Jones wrote “Trouble in Mind” about a century ago, and singer Bertha “Chippie” Hill made it a hit with a 1926 recording that had Jones himself on piano and a youngster by the name of Louis Armstrong on cornet. Since then, of course, the song’s been recorded by everyone from Big Bill Broonzy to Dinah Washington and Nina Simone. Music historians even call this tune the anthem of the classic blues genre, but actually its roots go even deeper. At least two different African American spirituals dating all the way back to the 1880s have similar themes in their lyrics. Now, The Flood has been doing “Trouble in Mind” for decades now; recently, Veezy Coffman gave it a whole new feel by bringing her big beautiful bari sax to bear on it. Hey, take a listen.
We’ve always loved this great old song -- now just about a century old — but we’ll be the first to tell you that there are some very hinky thing about our beloved tune. For one thing, hands down, the best known rendition of it is one of the earliest, the Columbia Records release by the great blues singer Bessie Smith. However, technically, the song’s not a blues. Structurally, it’s much like a vaudeville number or even an old music hall piece than one of the classic 12-bar blues that came out of the Mississippi Delta. Not only that, while “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” became one of the signature tunes of the Great Depression, we’ve learned that it was written actually almost a decade before those trouble times. Here’s how The Flood’s team of crack music detectives has sorted it out. The song was written in 1923 by a piano player named Jimmy Cox, who was indeed pretty well established on the black vaudeville circuit that worked the American roads in the Roaring Twenties. And Bessie Smith, who was just getting her career going in those days, was known to travel that same circuit and might have even performed in Jimmy Cox’s shows. It’s possible, in fact, she learned the song from Jimmy himself. What we know for sure that that by time Bessie Smith went back into the recording studio in the spring of 1929, Columbia was beginning to notice the blues records weren’t selling as well as they had had been and the suits wanted different material. Bessie responded with the Jimmy Cox composition from her vaudeville days. And here’s the final piece of the puzzle. In those days, it took a quite a long time for a record to make its way around the country. By the time it had traveled from New York City to the West Coast, the stock markets had collapsed and the Depression was beginning to wreak havoc. Imagine the listeners being amazed at how prophetic Bessie Smith’s new record was in describing their misery that first Depression winter. Here’s our take on the tune from a recent Flood rehearsal.
From almost a decade ago — in the early spring of 2013 — here’s the late Joe Dobbs fiddling the last of the many tunes he taught us over his 40 years of playing with us. Now, Joe’s tune here is an old one — it goes back at least 300 years — called “South Wind,” an Irish aire that Joe learned from a nice lady in Beckley, WV. And like many a good Irish tune, it prominently features a few ghosts along the way. The story of “South Wind” goes like this. It’s seems that there was a ghost ship bringing back home the souls of Irish exiles, men the Irish called The Wild Geese who had been killed in battle in foreign wars. As this haunted ship continued around southwestern County Cork, it was driven up the west coast by a southern breeze. And legend has it that the ghosts of these brave expatriates could be heard intoning this particular enchanted tune, which was picked up on the shore by the pipers and the fiddlers who handed down to us today.
On this Christmas Eve, our gift to you is a beautiful old carol. Now, in our country, we often know it as “What Child Is This?” based on a Christmas verse that was written more than a century and a half ago. But its melody is even more deeply enshrined in our common human experience. In fact, think about it! This tune — “Greensleeves” — is one of the oldest melodies that we in the western world even know. Dating back to at least the Elizabethan period of English history, “Greensleeves” was, in fact, so well known by the time of William Shakespeare that he could refer to it by name three times in his play, “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Meanwhile, this ancient, beautiful melody started being associated with Christmas and New Year’s as early as the 1680s. And yet, this tune never really seems to get very old, does it?
Because of travel and all the usual holiday hullabaloo, we couldn’t work out a rehearsal this week, but that’s okay. The lull lets us pick up a tune that got left on the shelf earlier. Here from a gig last month at Heritage Station in downtown Huntington is an old 1950s Coasters number that we learned from folksinger Tom Rush’s treatment of it in the ‘70s. Penned by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the song can be a real head-turner in a public show.
The mood of last night’s jam session was set before we even walked through the door, because our host, Doug Chaffin, had already gotten a good head start on an amble down memory lane when he dug out his mother’s old guitar. You’ll need some background here. In the 1940s, Doug grew up listening to — and then playing — string band music with his mom and her banjo-picking sister. Years later when he was all grown, Doug bought his mom the best guitar she’d ever play, a big, beautiful Gibson Dove, a study of love in maple, mahogany and rosewood. Well, we’ve not seen that guitar — it’s been in its case for decades — but at its coming out party last night it jumped right into the mix. Just listen to it shimmy on this jive tune from about a hundred years ago.
Have you ever notice that there’s magic in folk melodies, that they are both ancient and stunningly contemporary at the same time? But the magic’s more than that. Besides this wonderful timelessness, these well-worn melodies also seem to be almost universal in their emotional appeal. About a year ago when Vanessa Coffman first heard us noodling around with an old song called “Dink’s Tune,” which is quite deeply rooted in the American folk tradition, she heard a compatible twin from the other side of ocean, Scotland’s venerable ballad, “Loch Lomond.” Ever since then, we’ve been inviting these stately cousins to dance with each other. Here, from a recent rehearsal, listen as everyone in the band provides the setting for Randy Hamilton’s lovely, haunting vocals.
A long time ago, sitting in his hilltop home near Ashland, Ky., Doug Chaffin started noodling around with some ideas he got from the great Django Reinhardt in his classic "Minor Swing” recording of 1937. Well, over time, as these things do, the melody has grown and changed into something distinctly Chaffin-esque. Doug’s never given it a name, but his band mates in The Flood have taken to calling it “Django Doug.” The piece is not finished yet. Oh gosh, far from it! It keeps on evolving. Just listen to what Veezy Coffman’s tenor sax has brought to this rich mix of ideas, as recorded here at a jam session at the Chaffin house just a couple of weeks ago.
A good song sometimes seem like a train, with people getting on and off all along the way. And kind of like a distant train whistle, it might resonate differently with everybody who hears it. Here’s a tune I started doing 40 years ago with Dave and Rog and Joe soon after it was released on a Red Clay Ramblers album. Doug and Sam met the song probably 20 years ago, Randy 10 years after that. And for Veezy? Well, last night was the first time she’d ever hear the song. So, here’s our latest ride on one of late Tommy Thompson’s poignant modern Appalachian laments.
One of the coolest rooms we’ve ever played in Huntington is the beautiful, historic B&O depot downtown at Heritage Station. And so we are awfully pleased that our old buddy Tyson Compton, who runs the Huntington Area Convention & Visitors Bureau is that building, has invited us back to play there tomorrow morning at the November edition of the monthly Second Saturday Market. The Flood will be on hand from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Come on down and party with us. Here, from last night’s rehearsal, is a tune we’re polishing up for the day.
Last night we got to meet another member of Vanessa Coffman’s saxophonic family — a sexy silver soprano sax that Veezy’s has named “Savoy.” And what an excellent moniker that is for this lovely instrument, which is a refurbished 1920s sax that was in its infancy when New York’s great Savoy Ballroom for which it was named was just starting to showcase the century’s greatest jazz musicians. Well, so in honor of this venerable guest, you know we had to come up with an evening of appropriate tunes which would let it rock but also roll, like this, an alternately rollicking, then prancing rendition of the 1930s classic, “Blue Moon.”
Last night was not a great evening for our Veezy Coffman. No sooner had she arrived for the rehearsal at Doug Chaffin’s house near Ashland than she discovered one of the tires on her truck had been punctured and was growing flatter by the minute. Well, inside and out of the rain — oh yeah, it was also raining last night — Vanessa waited for a rescue in the form of her dad, Gary, driving in from home with the spare. Meanwhile, being the empathetic lot that we are, we switched the night’s musical menu to match her mood, meaning heavy on the blues. But after an hour or so of that, we realized that perhaps the blues might not be the best therapy, so we eased on over the jollier side of our spectrum. Now, we can’t say the operation was a complete success — it turns out even the most rigorous application of “Bye Bye Blues” won’t pull a nail out of a tire — but as illustrated here when Veezy’s sax just rocks the concluding choruses, it did manage to raise her spirits for at least a few minutes. Not surprising, that. After all, this old jazz standard has been generating grins and giggles for nearly a century now. And that’s good medicine.
You wonder if songs you hear today will still be around a century from now. Well, if Walter Donaldson wondered that about the song he penned back in the 1920s, he needn’t have worried. His tune — “My Blue Heaven” — was a hit for crooner Gene Austin when the ink was still wet on Walter’s pages, selling five million copies worldwide. That was pretty much unheard of in 1928. Then, over the next 90 years, the song has gone on to be hits for everyone from, oh, Frank Sinatra and Coleman Hawkins to Fats Domino. Here in Floodlandia, we sometimes use the song to start the weekly jam session, being a kind of barometer. If it rocks, then the whole evening’s gonna rock. Last night, it did — and it did.
We say it all the time — music is as much about listening as it is about playing — and here, from last night’s weekly Flood affair, is a lovely example of what we’re talking about. Now, midway through the evening, Doug Chaffin quietly picks a few notes from our all-time favorite Hoagy Carmichael song, and within seconds, Vanessa Coffman is right there, weaving in and out of Doug’s opening statement with her own memorable replies. Yeah, we say it all the time: listening to Doug and Veezy’s musical conversations makes you glad you have ears. Come on along and just listen to them listen to each other.
We were so pleased that our newest band mate, Vanessa Coffman, chose last night to spend part of a very big birthday — her 21st — with us. It’s also her first anniversary as a member of The Flood, and, to celebrate, she also brought a special guest. Now, ordinarily in the Floodisphere, Veezy plays “Blue,” her sweet and mellow tenor, but last night it was Blue’s big brother, the bari, that tagged along with her. All evening that the baritone sax, which Veezy named “Viper” (for its reptilian tubing), rocked the walls of the Bowen house just the way they love to be rocked. Listen the magic Veezy and Viper bring to this century-old Blind Blake tune midway through last night’s jam. Happiest birthday, Miss V, from your Family Flood!
One of our heroes — the great jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke — died 90 years ago this summer. His was a short but brilliant time on the planet; he was just 28 when he died, but even before he was gone, he was already a legend, and still today, his music is loved and imitated by players around the world. Some tunes we play always have us thinking of Bix, especially this one, which The Flood started fooling around with, gee, probably 40 years at those crazy, smoky music parties of the 1970s where the band was born. The song was a decade old when Bix and his buddies recorded it in 1928. A Leo Wood composition, it had already been a million-selling for Ted Weems and his Orchestra in 1924. It would go on the be recorded by everyone from Cab Calloway and Fats Waller to Count Basie and Benny Goodman. Jim Kweskin even made a cool jug band version in the ‘60s.
Our Vanessa Coffman has grown up in a very musical family. Her mom, Julianne, is a singer and today teaches music in the Cabell County schools. Her dad, Gary, also an educator, played sax in Marshall University jazz bands back in the ‘90s. So it’s not surprising that both her young siblings also play assorted instruments and sing. Veezy’s memories of childhood are filled with the sounds of her dad playing some of our greatest jazz standards of all times — “‘Round Midnight,” “Take Five,” “Georgia on My Mind” — and when at about 7 she wanted to be a sax player like her dad, it was Gary who taught her those first notes. The two of them still regularly jam together; some of our favorite new pictures in the Flood album are of the Coffmans playing duets, at home and even on the beach last summer. Well, today is Gary Coffman’s birthday, so here’s a little surprise from his Flood family: His favorite saxophonist playing his favorite tune. From a recent Flood gathering, this is Earle Hagen’s classic “Harlem Nocturne.” Aw, tell it, Veezy!
Singer/songwrirer Bob Gibson was a very early arrival on the folk music scene in the late 1950s. In fact, Bob was already so well established by the time of the 1959 Newport Folk Festival that it was he who introduced the crowd to a then-unknown Joan Baez. His songs were recorded by everybody from Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon & Garfunkel to the Byrds and Bob Dylan. Perhaps Gibson’s best-known song is “Abilene,” which he wrote with Lester Brown and John D. Loudermilk in the early 1960s. Bob always said he was inspired to write the song after watching cowboy star Randolph Scott’s film “Abilene Town,” which was set in Abilene, Kansas, the railhead town at the end of the Chisholm Trail. The Flood’s been doing some version of this tune for at least a decade now. Here’s the 2021 rendition, with Randy rocking the vocal harmonies, supported by sweet solos from Veezy, Doug and Sam.
So much about a good evening of music depends on the chemistry of the people in the room, and last night there were some wonderful people in the room. Our dear old friend, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin dropped in with his sweet fiancé Gina Raynard. Man, any room that Gina and Paul are in is suddenly brighter. And, of course, when Paul unpacks his mandolin, we’re all ready to trot out the old tunes. Of course, chemistry is also about the elements that are not in the mix; this was our first get-together since last weekend when we learned of the Covid-related death of our mutual friend, the extraordinary banjo picker Rick Harmon. Stories of Rick went around the room, and perhaps the best tune of the night was this one, sung his honor.
There are some nights when the music just can’t wait to get out, when everybody seemed to come to the room in the same groove. Last night was such a night, and I think we all knew it from the first notes of the first tune.
More than a decade ago, Doug Chaffin taught us a beautiful, mysterious waltz called “Ookpik.” At the time, he usually played it on fiddle or mandolin, but it’s had many configurations for The Flood, depending on who was sitting around the table when the tune comes up. Lately Doug’s brought the song to his guitar for a lovely duet with Veezy Coffman’s sax. Now “ookpik” is an Inuit name for the “snowy owl” that is native to Alaska. The late British Columbian fiddler Frankie Rodgers used the word for his title when he composed the piece back in 1965, and ever since then there’s been magic in a melody that seems to somehow capture a stately dance of wings in a cobalt blue sky.
We started playing the wonderful Diamond Teeth Mary Blues & Arts Festival in downtown Huntington… oh, it’s been seven or eight years ago now, and we always love coming back, but lord, and never more than this time. After the seemingly endless Covid shutdown, this’ll be our first public show in more than a year. We’ll be on stage at the festival at 2 o’clock this Saturday afternoon. Come on down for blues, food, art and good fellowship. To get in the mood, here’s a tune we’re working up for our set. We join in progress as The Flood finds its way to St. James Infirmary. Remember, we’re at the Diamond Teeth Mary Blues & Arts Festival at 2 p.m. Saturday at Heritage Station, at 210 11th Street in beautiful downtown Huntington.