This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we mourn the death of John Prime..

“Social distancing” doesn’t come naturally to most musicians. We’re a hugging, humming, harmonizing kind of people who generally don’t suffer solitude gladly.

But during this awful Coronavirus pandemic, we are behaving ourselves — staying at home, washing our hands, not touching our faces. It’s now been a month since the Family Flood has been together in the same room, and we miss each other terribly. But our family, like yours, will get through this thing.

Meanwhile, for these weekly podcasts, we continue to rely on recordings from months ago, and some of them suddenly seem especially poignant.

For instance, back in mid-winter, when Michelle and guys did this tune at a rehearsal, we had no idea how in just a few weeks it would have us longing for the simple pleasure of just being back together. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we mourn the death of John Prine.

For many of us, this pandemic thing got real about week ago when we learned that singer/composer John Prine had been hospitalized with the COVID-19 virus. And then last night we were absolutely heartbroken to learn that John — called by many the Mark Twain of American songwriting — had lost that fight, dead at 73.

So, we are in mourning today. But we’re also thinking about something we read that John said one time. He said, “I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness all get swirled up inside you."

John will certainly be living inside of us in The Flood. We started doing his tunes more than 40 years ago, just ripping ‘em right that first album in the early 1970s. And now, decades later, we’re still adding John Prine tunes to our songbag.

Just recently, for instance, we started doing a song from John’s “Storm Windows” album that he released in 1980, a song that our old partner the late Roger Samples was partial to. Here from a rehearsal a few months ago is “One Red Rose.” Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie has us innovatin’ on the blues.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee are two of our all-time favorite blues artists. Back in the late 1950s, the pair recorded an incredible album for Smithsonian Folkways called "Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing.” It was from that album that we took our inspiration for this blues with which we often open or close a rehearsal session, just because it's so much fun to play.

Now, we don’t do the tune the way Sonny and Brownie did it; the whole “folk process” idea calls on us all to bring our own style and attitude to the music we play. And that was something that Sonny and Brownie certainly knew, because they too were building on the blues they had heard from their heroes.

The evidence is that the song’s provocative key line — “If you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind” — didn’t originate with them. Back in 1936, Blind Boy Fuller used exactly the same line in his recording of “Keep Away From My Woman.” But it didn’t start with him either; seven years earlier, in 1929, Blind Joe Reynolds used the same line to open his tune, “Outside Woman Blues,” a song, incidentally, that would be covered 40 years later by the rock group Cream.

So, hey, the bottom line is we’re in very good company in offering our take on the tune. Here it is, then, from a recent Flood rehearsal, with a double helping of solos from everyone, Doug, the two Pauls, Vanessa and Sam. It’s “If You Lose Your Money.” Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie has us ediscovering an old tune.

More than 90 years ago, composer and pianist Spencer Williams wrote the great jazz standard “Basin Street Blues,” but here’s something we didn’t know until recently. Its wonderful opening lyric — “Won’t ya come along with me… Come along with me…. Down to the Mississippi…” was added later by Glenn Miller and Jack Teagarden. Ahhh, you live, you learn.

The Flood started doing the tune about a decade ago at the suggestion of our late fiddler, Joe Dobbs, and when Joe died five years ago, the tune seemed to go with him.

However, earlier this year, when jazz saxophonist Veezy Coffman started coming around, darned if Basin Street come back out! Here from a recent rehearsal is our 2020 version of the song, which Spencer William wrote as a kind of jazz-infused churchy call and response. Listen as Veezy opens the musical testimony, answered by the chorus of Doug, Sam and the two Pauls. Then the whole thing is turned over to Michelle who, always, nails the vocals. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie has us introducing a new tune for us.

As the Coronavirus has us all hunkering down in our homes, we figured it’s high time we rolled out the latest tune that we’ve been working on, one that’s all about the love of a good home.

Here from a recent rehearsal are Paul Callicoat and Michelle Lewis leading us on a sail through a great old 1960s Sam Cooke composition. And flowing in and out all along the way are sweet solos from everyone, from Paul Martin and Doug Chaffin, from Veezy Coffman and Sam St. Clair.

So, sit back and let our gang — Mister C and Michelle and the rest of the Flood family — bring it on home to you and yours.

Be safe our there, friends, and stay happy in your hunkering down. Wash your hands and, please, take care of each other! Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie has us revisiting a favorite tune.

It always seemed kind of magical how at the weekly rehearsals it's often the oldest and the youngest players at the table who develop a special kind of simpatico. N

ow, chronologically, there’s sixty years difference in the ages of Doug Chaffin and Vanessa Coffman, but when the music starts, these two are obviously quite soulful siblings.

Listen to the musical conversations they’re having throughout the great old Fats Waller standard that we started last night’s session with. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie has us revisiting a favorite tune.

Last week’s images of Mardi Gras were obviously still in our minds as we settled down for last night’s rehearsal.

We’ve always loved how New Orleans has taught the world an important lesson, that music — sort of like gumbo — can be a rich stew of many different cultures and ideas. You can jazz up just about any kind of music, from the low-down to the lofty.

A case in point is this classic tune that we first heard drifting through open church doors. Here are Michelle and the guys putting some good juju “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” Click to hear the tune.