This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 In music, newness is often a magical ingredient, and everything about this song is new. 

It all started when Charlie brought home yet another new guitar, this time a sweet little Gretsch resonator that he’ll brought always keep in one open tuning or another Playing around with it in Open D, he landed on this old Jackson Browne tune he remember from the early 1970s that just seemed to lay so easily on the strings. 

 
Well, the song was new to Danny and Randy, but true to their Flood nature, they took to it right away, immediately finding ways to enrich it. Listen to Dan’s brilliant solos and Randy’s gorgeous harmonies on the choruses.The arrangement is still evolving, but we wanted to share it here while it still had that new song smell.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This song pretty much languished in a desk drawer for the past 40 years, ever since Charlie wrote it back in the 1970s. Only recently, as the latest configuration of The Flood started exploring original compositions, did he even think of seeing if it might want a new life. 

 
But wow! He was really moved by how this sensitive re-imagining of the tune by these good people has made the song feel right at home in the 21st century.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 "Misty" has worn many hats in the Floodisphere. 

Back in the 1970s, it was a Ray Stevens-style campy instrumental for Joe and Rog. Then a few decades later, it became a sultry vocal standard for Michelle. 

 
Nowadays the song has returned to its original instrumental roots as a showcase for Vanessa and Danny. This take, from a rehearsal last month, is a classic jazz vehicle, starting with Veezy’s elegant statement of the melody, followed by her and then Dan exploring remarkable nuance among all those lovely Erroll Garner chords.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

Now, the older we get, the more we bristle at that thing we used to say each new year. You know, that “out with the old, in with the new” business? Well, we’re sure glad no one ever applied that silly rule to this great old song. 

The tune might be 150 years old, but it still righteously rocks, as we testify here with swinging solos from everybody in the band!

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Last week was our first outing on this great old jazz standard. 

When we started it, Veezy said she wasn’t sure she was familiar with it. By the time we finished it, it sounded like she wrote it herself!

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Christmas is a time of tradition and what says tradition better than an ancient melody that has been associated with the gentle Yuletide season for centuries?

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Whenever Charlie’s cousin Kathy Castner comes for a visit from her Cincinnati home, they sing, and their musical connection goes back a long way. 

As a child, Kathy regularly visited relatives in Ashland. Whenever she did, her grandmother often assigned Charlie to sing her to sleep at her bedtime. One of the tune he brought to bear on the little girl’s eyelids was this New Christy Minstrels classic — “Today (While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine)” — and they’re still singing all these decades later. 

 
Here, from Kathy’s visit with the Family Flood last week, is the latest rendition, with sweet solos by Dan, Veezy and Sam and with Randy joining Kathy and Charlie on the harmonies.