This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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. 

Like Rush, Charlie cultivates a slightly different melody line. He also brings in his resonator guitar and slide to give the tune a slightly bluesy quality. Then Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair add beautiful solos and Randy Hamilton provides the perfect subtle vocal harmonies along with his bass lines. Here's the result.

 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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!

Remember, we’re at Alchemy Theater, 68 Holley Ave, in the beautiful hills of Huntington this Sunday afternoon. The fun starts at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and all the proceeds go to support the good work of Alchemy Theater. For more information visit the web site at Floodat50.com.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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. Here’s Shelton Brooks’s “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone.”

 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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 Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 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.