This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie is a neat unscripted moment.

Sometimes the most memorable moment of an evening happens when you are waiting for something else to happen.

Last night, as we were waiting for the Chick Singer to arrive, Doug, Paul, Randy and Charlie started noodling around with a nice, slow version of Bob Dylan's old album-filler "Outlaw Blues" and we ended up passing a lot of smiles around.

Right in the middle of the tune, Michelle and her mama came in -- in the track, you can hear us saying howdy -- and Michelle jumped right in the mix. Sweet moment. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie is our day-after-election special.

We love that Midnight Special. So did Carl Sandburg, who published two versions in his 1927 "American Songbag," but it was from Lead Belly's recordings a couple decades later that we learned the tune.

There's always been a bit of controversy over what it means for that "ever-lovin' light" to shine on you. Some folks says it's about some kind of salvation. Others think it means that dang train's about run you over.

Either way, as Bob Dylan once said in another context, "imagine it would be some kind of change." Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie remembers a legend.

The great Mississippi John Hurt died 50 years ago today. We grew up loving this blues master's syncopated fingerpicking style, and his music has always been part of The Flood's DNA.

One of John's songs -- "Payday" -- was on The Flood's first CD 16 years ago and it remains in our repertoire. In fact, just last night, as you'll hear, "Payday" opened the weekly rehearsal. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features another musical time capsule.

Last night, while making the coffee and waiting for the guys to come play, Charlie heard himself humming a song he hadn't thought of in at least 20 years.

Back in the '90s, Dave, Joe and he would take a trip one night each spring to a little place near Beckley, WV, where they played an evening of music for visiting volunteers who had come for a week from Marquette University to help out with post-winter projects around the little town. The hostess for the party was a wonderful old folkie who each year always asked the guys to play the same tune, this grand old Tom Paxton composition.

Before that, they probably hadn't played it for another 20 years. And yet it seems as fresh today as it did all those decades ago. Here's "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound." Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a reunion with an old friend, one with music and rhyme.

Sometimes a song comes back into our lives like an old friend. We had that moment last night with a classic Eddie Arnold number, a tune we hadn't played in more than a year.

Listen to this, as Michelle re-introduces us to "You Don't Know Me" in the sweetest three minutes of the whole evening. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features two songs from a special reunion.

Musically speaking, Sallie Sublette is part of the family. Sallie met Joe Dobbs in 1976, just a year after the late fiddler came into our lives, and she and Joe had many memorable adventures together over the years.

Sallie also had long and loving history with The Flood's mother superior and guiding spirit, the eternal Nancy McClellan. She was long time buddy of Rog Samples and his brothers Mack and Ted. The list of our connections is great indeed.

So whenever Sallie comes back east from her home in Idaho, we look forward to at least one evening with her. Last night, when she and her sister Linda joined us, it was a time of laughs and tears, stories and, of course, songs. Here are two. Click to hear the tunes.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a blues for Mr. Got Rocks.

We try to keep politics out of the rehearsal room, but this week's news -- that one of the presidential candidates lost nearly a billion dollars and so may not have paid income tax for 18 years -- seeped even down to the Flood bunker, where, you know, we're nothing if not sympathetic to downtrodden billionaires.

Chin up, Mr. Got Rocks. If you lose your money, please don't lose your mind. Click to hear the tune.