This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a musical smile.

For us, some songs seem to exist just so we can tell each other how much we’re enjoying our evening together. This little bit of Bob Dylan gold — a tiny tune that for more than a decade we’ve used as a warmup number or sometimes as the last song of the night — is like that for us. It’s just a big old musical grin.

Here’s the 2018 edition of “Peggy Day.” Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a musical smooch.



Sometimes a song is like a sweet little good-night kiss at the end of a great evening. For us, that tune is often Michelle’s version of the Fats Waller classic, “Honeysuckle Rose.” Here’s a short and sweet rendition at the end of rehearsal one night not long ago, with Randy’s rocking bass and an especially tasty solo by Doug.
Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a pre-Thanksgiving tune.

We gearing up for this weekend’s November edition of Route 60 Saturday Night and since by then our favorite family holiday, Thanksgiving, will be just days away, we’re getting all nostalgic. And we figure you will be too, so we’re packing our house band set for the big show to be a real sentimental journey, about memories and homecomings.

For instance, here’s a lovely homecoming tune we have on tap for Saturday night, “Spoon River” by the great songwriter Michael Peter Smith.

Remember, it’s Route 60 Saturday Night, this Saturday night, at Route 60 Music Co., 60 Peyton St. in Barboursville. This month’s guest artists are singer-songwriter Kate Long and the new duo Siamese Cycle. The 90-minute show starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $5 and this month, all proceeds go to the Boys and Girls Club of Huntington. Come on out for good times for a good cause! Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a deep dive into The Flood's past.

One of the first tunes The Flood ever played – we’re talking the early 1970s, here – was “Solid Gone,” also called “Cannonball Blues.”

Dave Peyton had learned it from old Carter Family records. Charlie Bowen learned it from a 1960s Tom Rush recording. Roger Samples learned it from, well, Dave and Charlie.

Over the years, the song has popped up on Flood recordings in all of our four decades together. Five years ago, it was included on the band’s fifth CD, the one we called “Cleanup & Recovery.”

And even more recently, the latest rendition of the song is on the set list for the numbers The Flood will perform at the next “Route 60 Saturday Night” later this month. Here’s “Solid Gone” from a recent rehearsal. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a tribute to an old friend.

Michelle and Charlie were honored to be asked to play a few tunes last weekend at the funeral services for Vernon Peyton, the older brother of Floodster Emeritus David Peyton.

Vernon was old friend of The Flood — in fact, a couple of years ago, we played at his 91st birthday party; a few years before that, we also played at the memorial service for Lillian, Vernon’s wife of 70 years, so these roots run deep.

For last Saturday’s services, Vernon’s daughter, Karol, asked Michelle to sing a favorite song, “Morning Has Broken,” a hymn that she revisited at last night’s regular Flood rehearsal.

Incidentally, as you listen to this, you’ll here some lovely harmony being sung by Kate Long, who was visiting us all last night. Kate, who’s a great singer-songwriter in her own right, will be the featured guest at the next Route 60 Saturday Night show Nov. 17 and we’re working up some arrangements so that The Flood can accompany her that night on a couple of her beautiful compositions. More on that in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, Vernon, this one’s for you, old friend. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a classic from The American Songbook..

More than 90 years ago, Irving Berlin composed this tune as a last-minute addition to a little known Rodgers and Hart musical called “Betsy.” The show itself was a flop — it had fewer than 40 performances — but the song, “Blue Skies,” was an instant hit in those early days of radio and movies.

In fact, in 1927, the year after it was composed, “Blue Skies” became one of the first songs to be featured in a talkie, when Al Jolson performed it in “The Jazz Singer.”

Today it’s one of the beloved and most recorded tunes in The American Songbook, done by everyone from Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw to Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Mel Torme to Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Dr. John.

Here’s Michelle leading us on a Flood rendition of “Blue Skies” recorded at a rehearsal last summer, with sweet solos by Doug, Paul and Sam. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie celebrates October.

As we’re preparing for this weekend’s October edition of Route 60 Saturday Night, we’re collecting our autumn songs for The Flood’s house band duties, including this lovely ancient Irish lullaby.

Charlie learned “October Winds,” also called “The Castle of Dromore,” from the singing of the great Liam Clancy, and he recently taught it to the rest of the band, specifically for this show. The lyrics were written more than a hundred years ago by Harold Boulton, but the melody may be much, much older. We look forward to sharing it with friends this Saturday night.

Remember, the 90-minute show is this Saturday night, Oct. 20, at Route 60 Music Co., 60 Peyton Street in Barboursville.

Our guest artists this month are jazz guitarist Dr. Mark Zanter and beloved West Virginia singer-songwriter Colleen Anderson. The fun starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $5 and this month, all proceeds go to the good works of the Huntington Cabell-Wayne Animal Shelter. Come on out for good times for a good cause. Click to hear the tune.