Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

 We were already having a righteous good time at Doug Chaffin’s house earlier this week when suddenly in walked a young guitar player who would ratchet things up to a whole new level of coolness. Now, Josh Woods is old friend of our newest Floodster, Danny Cox, but it turns out his roots go even deeper than that. That’s because we learned that Doug Chaffin used to regularly jam with Josh’s dad, John Woods. Needless to say, there were lots of stories between the tunes, but let’s focus on the tunes. Here are Danny and Josh trading choruses on some classic blues, including our rendition of Ray Charles’s “Hard Times.”

 It was a grand and goofy night at the Bowen house last night, full of stories and wisecracks and ambling down wondrous strange new musical pathways, turning up numbers like, well, this granddaddy of all things rock ’n’ roll that just came running out to greet us about mid-evening.

A fresh set of ears — especially if they’re as attuned as Veezy Coffman’s — can hear something new in something old. Just listen to all the new opportunities that Veezy’s tenor sax finds in this dusty old folk melody. And then listen to how that inspires Dan Cox and Sam St. Clair to new exploration in their own solos.

Throughout the winter and spring, our newest band mate, Danny Cox, has been having one-on-one weekly jam session with his old buddy, bassist Randy Hamilton, and sometimes they bring tunes they’ve work out to the regular weekly Flood rehearsal so the rest of us to get in on the fun. Now, over the the years, we’ve tried to work out a Flood arrangement of “Deep River Blues,” but it never really took, until recently when Randy and Danny brought in what they wrought. And as you can hear on this track, we’re all pretty excited about it.  

 Doug Chaffin has played a lot of instruments in his two decades with The Flood — bass, fiddle, mandolin — and put a guitar in his hands and it is likely this will be the first tune to bob to the surface. At a recent jam session at the Chaffin house, Veezy Coffman had just arrived and unpacked her horn when Doug launched into “Bye Bye Blues” just to celebrate the moment.

 When The Flood first started doing this song more than 20 years ago, it was an instrumental for us with fiddler Joe Dobbs playing the lead. However, when Michelle started singing with us, she claimed “Moonglow” as she own, making her recording debut with it as “Michelle Walker” on our third album in 2003. And now that Michelle has moved on to start an exciting new chapter in her life as Mrs. Rich Hoge, “Moonglow” for The Flood has returned to its roots. Here, from a recent rehearsal, is a sweet instrumental rendition with Veezy Coffman, Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair finding new expression in this 90-year-old number.

 We spent last night’s rehearsal polishing up the set list we’ll play at a very special event this weekend. We’ll be part of the wedding celebration near Cincinnati when Floodster Emeritus Michelle Lewis marries her beloved Rich Hoge. We’re invited to perform during the dinner tomorrow evening, and we can’t wait. We intend to open the set with this wonderful old happy anthem to love from the 1960s.

 Most of what we played in Ashland last week was rather rollicking when we gathered to jam with our tribal elder, Doug Chaffin. However, whenever you get this bunch together, you can’t count on just one type of music. Here is the most mellow moment of the evening, with Veezy, Doug and Danny listening to each other on a whole ‘nother level.

 Doctor Flood made a house call earlier this week. Our tribal elder, Doug Chaffin, has had a rough 2022 so far. Despite being double-vaxxed and boosted, Doug fought a rugged few rounds with Covid over the winter and he’s still recovering, so the Family Flood rode into Ashland last Tuesday night to visit him and Donna. The mission was to perk up their spirits, and, hey, we think the magic worked. Now, Doug has always liked this old W.C. Handy tune ever since we started doing it about a year ago, so it was only fitting to make it the centerpiece of our jam at the Chaffin house. Listen to Doug, Veezy and Danny just rocking the solos.

 We could do Hoagy Carmichael tunes all night long — and, well, sometimes we pretty much do. Here, from last night’s Floodifying, is our latest take on a lesser known Carmichael work, Hoagy’s cool 1932 composition called simply “New Orleans.”