This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a Christmas tune we’re working up for a gig this weekend.

Until the great Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer Charles Brown opened our eyes and ears to the concept, most of us never thought of Christmas as a time for the blues. But then in 1961, King Records released “Charles Brown Sings Christmas Songs” and suddenly Christmas was cool.

The standout track on that album was Brown’s composition called, “Please Come Home for Christmas,” a song that has hit the chart dozens of times since that original release. The Eagles, for example, had a beloved version in the 1970s, Bon Jovi would revisit the tune in the 1990s. Meanwhile, in this century it’s been given fine treatments everyone from Willie Nelson and Martina McBride to Kelly Clarkson.

And now we in The Flood will be incorporating the number into our house band tunes at this weekend’s Route 60 Saturday Night holiday show. Here we are working on our arrangement at last night’s rehearsal. That’s Paul Martin singing lead and Michelle Lewis with her call-and-response harmony. It’s “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Click to hear the tune.

Remember, it’s Route 60 Saturday Night, THIS Saturday night, at Route 60 Music Co., 60 Peyton Street in Barboursville. We have some of the region’s favorite sons as our guests this month, including singer-songwriter Rob McNurlin and the group Blues Crossing, featuring Mike Lyzenga and Ray Hensley. The show starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $5, and this month all proceeds go to help the good work of Facing Hunger Foodbank of Huntington. Come on out for a good time for a good cause.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features some accidental magic that makes music worth doing.

No matter how far we roam in search of new material, The Flood never gets too far away from its folky roots. A Woody Guthrie or a Pete Seeger tune can bring us back home in an instance.

And fundamental to the band’s DNA is the music of the great Huddle Ledbetter, better know as Lead Belly. In fact, one of the first songs The Flood ever did back when it was aborning in the early 1970s was a Lead Belly classic called “Ella Speed,” about a turn-of-the-century murder of a lady of the evening in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Folklorist John Lomax recorded Lead Belly singing that very song in Louisiana’s Angola Penitentiary in 1933.

And while Lead Belly is the recognized source of that song, we learned it from another recording. It’s on Ian & Sylvia’s wonderful 1964 “Four Strong Winds” album, with John Harold doing the guitar solos.

Well, here’s The Flood’s 2019 latest rendition, with the solos in the able hands of Paul Martin, Doug Chaffin and Paul Callicoat. It’s “Ella Speed.” Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features some accidental magic that makes music worth doing.

Sometimes the magic of the evening comes just when you think the evening is over!

At a recent rehearsal, we’d had a good, productive session and the boys were heading for the door. Sam had already had to go, the two Paul’s — Paul Martin and Paul Callicoat were packing up their instruments — and Doug was wringing out the last notes of the night on his fiddle.

But before the guys could get their coats on, Michelle and Charlie started playing a favorite tune, and in a flash they were back in their seats to play one more. Here it is, old winter’s song: “Autumn Leaves.” Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a tune for one of our long-time girlfriends.

Well, this will our first Thanksgiving without a visit from Michelle’s sweet mama. For years and years, we’ve have the sincere pleasure of looking across the room at rehearsals and performances to see Michelle’s mom smiling back at us.

It was about a month ago that Lucile passed away, just a day after her 82nd birthday. One of the many joys in having her with us was that she would sing along on her favorite songs. And she had a LOT of favorite songs, but surely somewhere near the top of that list was “Blue Skies.”

Here from a rehearsal a week or so ago is her daughter Michelle’s latest rendition of it.

This one’s for you, Lucille. Are you singing it with us, Mama? Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a tune from The Flood’s sick ward.

Okay, so, we probably should’ve canceled last night. Because of illness and other obligations, we barely had a quorum for the weekly rehearse.

But, then, well, as St. Matthew once told us, “Boys, whenever two or more gather in its name, it is The Flood!”

And last night our little Flood Lite trio even managed to send out this tune to our sick and shut-in bandmates. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 flood

This week's freebie features a tune we’re whippin’ up for this weekend’s gig.

Getting ready as your house band for this weekend’s monthly Route 60 Saturday Night show, we wanted to have a tune that could help you get you in the mood for Thanksgiving. That means food-related songs, of course, and The Flood’s got a few, though granted, some are more seasonally appropriated than others.

Then we thought again about a great little novelty tune that trumpeter Cootie Williams wrote and sang more than 80 years ago when it was recorded by Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1938. It tells a sad story of a meal in which all the main courses go badly awry, but, then, oh, Lord, ain’t the gravy good?!

Remember, it’s Route 60 Saturday Night, THIS Saturday night at Route 60 Music Co., 60 Peyton Street in Barboursville. This month’s guests artists are singer-songwriters Tim Browning, Maggie Moore and Ricky G. Fox. And as a special treat, we’ll have a mid-show set by the next generation of Tri-State talent, Route 60 Saturday Night’s youngest guest to-date, 12-year-old Bronson Tolliver. You don’t want to miss this!

Admission is $5 and this month all proceeds go to help the good work of United Way of the River Cities. Come on out for a good time for a good cause. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week's freebie features a nifty warmup tune.

Usually for the weekly rehearsal, Doug Chaffin and Paul Martin both arrive carrying two instruments. Paul has his mandolin, of course, and his mellow, beautiful Martin acoustic guitar, while Doug, along with his trusty fiddle, is carrying his sweet Paul Reed Smith electric.

A good warmup number for the us enables Paul and Doug to pick a bit on all those instruments, as they do in this particular tune.

Last night, as we were waiting for our star singer Michelle Lewis to navigate the always-iffy interstate traffic and get here from her home near Charleston, Paul Callicoat laid down a nice rhythm on his bass, and we listened to the guys stretch out on a favorite Hoagy Carmichael song, with a variety of tasty solos by Paul and Doug sandwiched in with right righteous harmonica breaks by Sam St. Clair.

Here’s a warmup rendition of “Georgia on My Mind.” Click to hear the tune.