From This Week's Flood Jam Session

This week's freebie from The 1937 Flood jam session features our take on a great 1933 Ethel Waters standard.

Michelle Walker, the chick singer, can't make it to the jam session every week, but it's always a special night when she arrives early and stays late. Last night was such a night. Michelle came in out of the rain with a song in mind that we could do as a little anthem for the stormy week we've had here in the valley. Hear the audio.

By the way, tunes from the jam sessions make up our weekly Flood podcasts. You can subscribe for free and get the music automatically delivered to your computer each Thursday. For details on that, click here.

From This Week's Flood Jam Session

This week's freebie from The 1937 Flood jam session features a little history lesson, hokum style.

Every May, The Flood plays one of its favorite gigs of the year. It's the annual Coon Sanders Nighthawks Fans Bash, a gathering here in our hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, that celebrates the early days of jazz and Dixieland.

For seven or eight years now, The Flood has come to the bash's Saturday morning session with a "Jug Band Breakfast," an hour or so of bacon and eggs with a liberal side of hokum tunes. In preparation for the day, we focused on our jug band repertoire at last night's jam session. Hear the audio.

By the way, tunes from the jam sessions make up our weekly Flood podcasts. You can subscribe for free and get the music automatically delivered to your computer each Thursday. For details on that, click here.

From This Week's Flood Jam Session

This week's freebie from The 1937 Flood jam session features a tune from fiddler Joe Dobbs' diverse musical background.

Spending his early years in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, Joe was exposed a wide variety of musical styles, from Cajun to country, blues to bluegrass, pop to polka. Forty years ago when he came north and east and helped us form The Flood, Joe brought us a huge song bag.

Here's one that was always popular with the sizable German population of Joe's old stomping grounds. And incidentally, this also is a substantial answer to anyone who thinks traditional fiddlers just want to plop down in plain D and stay there. "Clarinet Polka" makes three key changes each time through the melody. Hear the audio.

By the way, tunes from the jam sessions make up our weekly Flood podcasts. You can subscribe for free and get the music automatically delivered to your computer each Thursday. For details on that, click here.