This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 In the autumn of 1963, a new tune hit the charts that sparked the imagination of all of us aspiring young folksingers. 

It was 63 years ago this month that radio stations throughout our part of the world seemed to hourly played Bobby Bare’s new song. 

 
“500 Miles Away From Home” had a special meaning here, because Bobby was famously is of us, a native son of Ironton, Ohio.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 As much as we try to use the rehearsals to work out arrangements to our regular tunes, we never drift too far away from The Flood’s original loose jam session vibe. 

 
That means there’s always room for “sometimes kinda tunes," like this one, heads-up, top-down and just flat-out rattling and rolling into the sunset!

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 This song got dressed up and went to town last week when Danny Cox came to the rehearsal with his sweet Gretsch Super Chet. 

 
Just listen to how Dan uses that classic 1970s hollow body guitar to bring sass and class to this long-time Flood standard.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Here’s the latest treasure that Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox have brought to The Flood’s table, a Charlie Starr composition from Alabama that resonates powerfully in our own Appalachian hills as well.

 

 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Here’s an audio snapshot of the end of last week’s rehearsal. 

We’d had a wonderful evening singing with Flood sweetheart Kathy Castner who had made one of her rare visits in from Cincinnati. 

 
At the beginning of this track you can hear folks packing up their instruments and saying their goodbyes. 

But at the same time, over in the corner, Danny Cox and his guitar have one more tune to do with Kathy. Listen as the guys realize what’s happening and join in for this sweet final moment of the night.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Here’s a tune that will be on the set list tomorrow night when The Flood opens the festivities at this year’s Diamond Teeth Mary blues festival in downtown Huntington. 

 
It’s a 1913 composition by the great Shelton Brooks. And if that name sounds familiar, you might be remembering last week’s podcast when we talked about Brooks’ best-known composition, the phenomenal “Darktown Strutters’ Ball.” 

As noted last week, by the time Brooks wrote that, his songwriting chops were already firmly established with songs like this one, which was performed by everyone from Sophie Tucker and Mae West to Tampa Red, Georgia Tom and Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon. 

Here’s The Flood’s take on “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone.” 

Remember, the Diamond Teeth Mary Medicine Show will be rocking downtown Huntington tomorrow night in the beautiful Heritage Station, 210 11th Street. The Flood takes the stage at 6 p.m.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 We had our old buddy Jim Rumbaugh in the band room recently. Jim will be sitting in with us when The Flood plays at the latest Diamond Teeth Mary blues festival next week. 

Last week, after we’d worked on the blues tunes we’ll do for the show, we switched this rocking old Roaring Twenties number from Shelton Brooks. 

It all went well until I tried to tag it with a classic Chuck Romine ending. Hey, who knew there’d be spelling?!

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 As we start thinking about what The Flood should play for its set at this year’s Diamond Teeth Mary blues festival here in Huntington, one song seems like a natural. It’s a near-century-old tune that touched the lives of two great West Virginia jazzmen. 

Big band composer Don Redmond, who hailed from the eastern part of the Mountain State, wrote the song in 1929. 

Then a dozen years later, the phenomenal saxophonist Chu Berry from Wheeling recorded it in his very last studio session. Here’s The Flood’s latest take on Redmond’s great “Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You?”

 
Remember, we’ll be at the Diamond Teeth Mary festival Saturday, Aug. 22 at Heritage Station, 210 11th Street in beautiful downtown Huntington. The Flood is honored to open the festivities with its set at 6 p.m.
 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Surely, no innovation in modern human history has gotten so deeply into our psyche, into our hearts and minds. Railroad imagery fills our art and music, symbolizing so many beginnings … and endings. 

 
Here’s a train tune from our folk-infused youth.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 The late Dave Peyton inspired Charlie Bowen to write this song. 

 
Railing against the relentless ravaging of our state, he’d say, “Sometimes I think the worst thing that ever happened to West Virginia was when somebody discovered coal.” 

And what bothered him almost as much was the paralyzing grief felt by generations of Mountain State natives, a communal sorrow for not being able to stop the rape of our home.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 An old friend, Jim Strother, once said, “Remember back when you’d see a fella ramblin’ along carrying a guitar case, and he’d have his coat collar turned up against the wind and a cap pulled down over his eyes. With just one look you knew everything you needed to know about that guy.”

 
And the soundtrack in your head when you saw that was always an early Bob Dylan tune, like this one.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 There’s nothing like a good old train song to capture the crossroads in a man or a woman’s life. Here’s one of the best in our repertoire.

"Yellow Dog Blues" was the last tune of our night with John Ace, the wonderful fiddler introduced to us by Floodster Emeritus Dave "Bub" Ball.

 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 We’re celebrating America’s 250th birthday with Woody Guthrie’s best-loved tune, a song that many of us think ought to be the national anthem. 

 

And we’re happy to be joined on this week’s podcast by Cap’n John Ace, who rambled into the band room from Alexandria, Va., by way of Florida with Floodster Emeritus Dave “Bub” Ball.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 When the room needs a respite from the band’s frequent fare of loud and raucous tunes, Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox always have just what the doctor ordered.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Dave Peyton, Roger Samples and Charlie Bowen used to play this tune back in the ‘70s, but it’s only recently come back into the Floodipshere. 

Here’s the 1933 signature tune of The Delmore Brothers, featuring Danny Cox’s guitar and Jack Nuckols’ fiddle.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Our Flood brother Danny Cox and his sweet wife Tami are on vacation this week, but before they hit to the road, we had to give Dan a good Flood set-off. 

 
Here’s a little traveling music, the last tune of the evening’s rehearsal.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 We’ve said it before. We’ll say it again. Much of the music made at our weekly rehearsals is conversations that aren’t burdened with so many words. This particular conversation is saying, “Damn, man, it’s good to see y’all again!” 

 
Here, from the opening moments of last week's rehearsal, is the latest take on "Opus One."

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 A lot of the hokum tunes that The Flood has always loved were born far to the south of us, in place like Memphis and New Orleans. 

 
So it’s always a treat to find a song that grew a little closer to home. This tune traces back to a youngster named Bob Coleman — Kid Cole, they called him — from the west side of Cincinnati. It was 98 years ago this very month that Bob recorded it in Chicago. 

Here’s “Tear It Down.”

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

Since it’s Memorial Day weekend, we wanted to offer something appropriate in this week’s podcast. 

 
Of course, in the Floodisphere, our spiritual inclinations generally lean more to a rambunctious New Orleans jazz funeral than to a little church in the wildwood. 

So, here’s jubilant little hymn from your friends in The Flood.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 The Flood band room is usually a rather raucous place —rocking tunes, loud talk, lots of laughter — but often that mood can turn on a dime to something softer, even almost fragile. 

We hadn’t done this old Jackson Browne song for years, but something last week — about watching that the beautiful spring evening come falling in, seeing those long shadows rolling down over the newly green leaves outside our windows — brought this song back to mind. 

Here’s our latest take on “Jamaica Say You Will.”