Merry Christmas from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie is a special extended holiday edition of The 1937 Flood podcast.

Christmas is a time of reunion and we were thrilled last night that Floodster Emeritus Jacob Scarr -- back in town on Christmas break from the college he attends in Colorado -- brought his guitar to sit in with us.

He and Randy Hamilton and Charlie Bowen were just getting started, when other friends started arriving to enjoy some time with Jacob.

Along came Randy Brown with his big old Gibson L-5 and through the other door came blues harmonica great Jim Rumbaugh and his friend Karen Combs, a lady who knows a thing or two about the blues herself.

Our Christmas gift to you is a sampling of this very special evening. Click here to hear the tunes.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features an old favorite from the '50s.

Nobody ever did the blues better than Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Back in the late 1950s they recorded an incredible album for Smithsonian Folkways called "Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing," which offered a number of original compositions.

Included was this song, which we often use to open or close a rehearsal session, because it's just so much fun. Click here to hear the tune.

 Tunes from the rehearsal sessions make up our weekly Flood podcasts. You can subscribe for free and get the music automatically delivered to your computer most Thursdays. For details on that, click here.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

In this week's freebie, we invite you to listen in on a little musical banter.

People play music for all kinds of reasons, in all kinds of places. For us, some of the best times come when we're just sitting around playing and listening to each other. It's a kind of musical conversation that sometimes reaches beyond mere words.

Last night was a case in point. We hadn't seen each other for a few weeks, and it was good to just sit down and catch up. Want to eavesdrop? Here's a sample. Click here to hear the tune.

Tunes from the rehearsal 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

In this week's freebie, we take a moment to remember an old friend.

Today's the birthday of one of our favorite people. Bob McCoy would have been 71 today, but we lost him -- gosh, could it be more than four years ago now?

At last night's rehearsal, we paused for a Bob Moment, singing his favorite song. These days, we never do Tom Paxton's great "Ramblin' Boy" without thinking Bob McCoy's smile that lit up the room. Bob, here's to you, buddy. Click here to hear the tune.

Tunes from the rehearsal 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

In this week's freebie, we revisit a favorite Dylan tune.

"Peggy Day" is one of the stepchildren of Bob Dylan's great songbook. The tune's only claim to fame is that it was the B-side when Bob released "Lay, Lady, Lay" as a single in the summer of '69. Unlike a lot of Dylan lyrics, "Peggy Day" has no intriguing back story or legend that we've ever heard. Dylan probably just tossed it off as filler when he was finishing up the great "Nashville Skyline" album all those years ago.

But the song has always been a favorite for The Flood, especially in recent years, as Michelle Lewis has been perfecting her wonderful vocal harmony part. Last night everybody took a turn on the tune in a particularly happy moment of the very happy rehearsal. Click here to hear the tune.

Tunes from the rehearsal 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 memory of an old friend.

The great fiddler J.P. Fraley died three years ago, but still is very much an influential part of our Appalachian world, and The Flood has always felt fortunate to have a direct connection to J.P. through Doug Chaffin.


Doug played and traveled with J.P. and his wife Annadeen for decades and is a walking encyclopedia of J.P. tunes and stories. Doug played on J.P.'s 1998 twin fiddle CD with Betty Vornbrock.

At a quiet moment at last night's rehearsal, Doug took up his guitar to play this remembrance of a classic tune from that album, the beautiful "Ook-Pik Waltz." Click here to hear the tune.

Tunes from the rehearsal 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 trio of tunes from last weekend's show at Woodlands, a wonderful retirement community on a hilltop overlooking our hometown of Huntington, West Virginia.

Friday night the folks filled the hall, singing and laughing with us! Here are a few tunes from that evening, including some featured solos by our guest artists, Sherri Hamilton on piano and Paul Martin on mandolin.

And we wrap up the podcast with a beautiful Michelle Lewis number. You'll even hear Michelle a little out of breath at the end, as a result of dancing with one of the residents during her performance.

What a great night! Click here to hear the three tunes.

Tunes from the rehearsal 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.