Last month one of our heroes — guitarist Tommy Emmanuel — released a special rendition of this song in honor of another of our heroes — Doc Watson — and hearing Tommy’s playing of it has impacted our take on the tune. Here’s our latest version of “Ready for the Times to Get Better.”
The Flood started playing around with hokum music — those good old jug band tunes from the 1920s — about a half century ago, but it took another 20 years for us to feel confident enough to try to write one of those kind of songs ourselves. Charlie started putting this tune together back in the early 1990s, but then it took another 30 years for us to feel like we could play it.
Charlie wrote “The Answer Is You” while reflecting on the decades that he and Pamela have been “in each other’s care,” the lyrics say.
The song actually has been in the wings for some 15 years now, patiently waiting for its Flood debut. Only recently did we realize that what it needed what Jack’s tasty rhythm and Danny’s definitive guitar stylings. They’ve certainly made it worth the wait.
This old John Stewart composition came to us in the very first hours of The Flood’s origin story. And now, a half century later, darned if it hasn’t rolled back into our lives.
We do a version of this song that most people don’t sing. We got our inspiration from an old Folkways album that Rolf Cahn and Eric von Schmidt recorded back in 1961.
Here’s a song that we likely wouldn’t even know about were it not for the diligence and the curiosity of a researcher who was far from an ordinary young woman of her time.
Here’s one she found for her 1944 book, “Steamboatin’ Days.”
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 10 years now since Randy Hamilton brought us this tune. It resonated with us then and even more so today.
We sure wish we had started doing this song back when our buddy Dave Peyton was still alive. Oh, how Dave would have loved the goofy, gritty gospel vibe of this tune from the incomparable Mister Tom Waits.
Our Randy Hamilton was just born to sing songs like this. He and Danny Cox brought us “Spooky,” this old Classics IV tune, last summer and we’ve been loving it ever since.
The fun of playing some songs is that we just never know what we’re going to hear. This George Gershwin piece is like that, ever since Danny Cox brought better chords for last year.
Now the song is like a shiny little red convertible parked in the garage just waiting for the next sunny day.
Hop in! We’re going for a joy ride!
Sometimes the chemistry’s right — the stars align — however you want to say it… and the best song of the night is one you didn’t even plan to do. Here’s that moment from a recent rehearsal.
Charlie’s Grandma Bowen had a thing about mockingbirds.
When he was just a little boy he remembers her winking at him and saying, “Now, Eddie, be careful what you say around mockingbirds. Those darn birds? They’ll tell your secrets every time.”
Our guitarist Danny Cox paints pictures with his sound.
