This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a new idea on a tune we've been working on for a while.

Arrangements of our tunes evolve, and here's a case in point. We've been playing around with W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" for a while now and, honestly, it just wasn't gelling.

At last night's rehearsal, we ran through the tune pretty much the way we've done it all along, and then Charlie got up to refill people's coffee cups. When he came back into the room, Michelle Walker had had a new idea about the song. She suggested we should try it again and this time…. well … hey, let's just let Michelle tell it. Click here to hear how the new arrangement came to be.


Finally, Remember that the 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.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a little bit of magic from last night's rehearsal.

Doug Chaffin is one sneaky character. Many an evening at the weekly rehearsal, we'll be chatting between tunes -- telling stories and thinking of what to work on next -- and quietly Doug will start picking something on his guitar. At first it just blends into the room's chatter, but soon it's captivated everyone.

Listen to this track from last night's rehearsal and hear how Doug's rendering of the old J.P. Fraley standard "White Rose Waltz" works its charms. After a few dozen notes, the room goes quiet. Next you can hear Michelle Walker humming along, looking for a harmony part. (Maybe for a future outing with the tune, we'll find some words for her. If you know any, give us a holler.)

Next Doug nods to Joe Dobbs, who takes a turn for a beautiful fiddle solo in the middle before handing it back to Doug.

If you don't believe in magic, you probably have never played music. Click here to hear the tune.

Finally, Remember that the 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.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features The Flood trying to speak in a foreign tongue…

David and Susie Peyton's son, Davy, is town this week and when he dropped by last night's rehearsal, The Flood got a bit nostalgic, reaching for tunes we started playing back when Davy was just a baby -- like this beautiful old French tune that we learned from the great folk duo, Ian & Sylvia.

Now, honestly, being proud products of these Appalachian hills, we're a little shaky and self-conscious about our French pronunciation. In fact, whenever we play this song in a show, we always preface it by asking if anyone in the audience speaks French. If anyone raises a hand, we point and say, "For you, it's in German!" Click here to hear the tune.

Finally, Remember that the 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.

Check Out the New Video from The 1937 Flood!

Hi folks,

There's no regular podcast this week -- we took Wednesday off as an unscheduled day of rest -- but if you need your Flood fix, check out the new eight-minute video we've just added to The Flood YouTube channel. It features a few tunes from our Sunday afternoon gig at Nelle and Jeff Howards' hilltop home in Waverly, West Virginia. What a fun day that was! Click here to see the show.

Meanwhile, remember that the tunes from the rehearsal and shows make up our Flood podcasts. You can subscribe for free and get the music automatically delivered to your computer. For details on that, click here.