Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

For 15 years now, Michelle and Charlie have looked for tunes we can harmonize on. Well, in these frustrating COVID-19 days, when we’ve not seen more than a couple of our bandmates together at one time — always outside, always socially distanced — this old Everly Brothers song that we came upon earlier this week seems like an especially poignant hymn to how much we all mean to each other. Here then, direct from the Bowen breezeway, complete with the hum of the neighbors’ air conditioners in the background, is our summer morning rendition of “Let It Be Me.”

When we were growing up, the undisputed queen of Kentucky folk music was the extraordinary singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie. Memories of her cool-as-crystal-water voice singing a cappella on some mountain ballad still send shivers down our spines. Now Jean typically eschewed controversial topics, but in the mid-1960s, the plight of impoverished coal miners in his native Perry County moved her to write perhaps her best known song, one we’ve been playing for decades now. Here’s a recent rendition from one of our recent minimalist rehearsal with Doug Chaffin on lead guitar and Danny Gillum standing in on upright bass. The highlight of the track is Paul Martin’s haunting solos and fills, first on mandolin, then on acoustic guitar.

The heat wave has really hampered our attempts to have outdoor / socially distanced breezeway jam sessions lately. Good golly, Miss Molly — it’s been hitting 90 before noon around this here this week! But here’s a tune from a few weeks ago when Veezy Coffman brought her tenor sax around to run through some tunes with Michelle and Charlie. You know, we continue to be amazed at what good ears young Miss Coffman has. She listens intently and when it’s her turn to take it, she usually brings something fresh to the mix. Check out this track. It’s starts with Michelle and Charlie strolling down a fairly familiar path, then Veezy joins in and finds brand new sights for us along the way.

It was nearly 50 years ago now that the great David Bromberg brought out his first album — just about the same time that The Flood was thinking about being born — and the second cut on that LP was a little original composition of David’s called “Suffer to the Sing the Blues.” The lyrics and attitude of the tune just tickled all of us, and we regularly did it at the music parties and the few coffeehouse gigs we played in those days. Then the song just sort of drifted away from us for a while, but lately we’ve been bringing back. Here’s a take on the tune for one of the minimalist rehearsals we’ve been having lately in this weird time of COVID. Somehow the tune seems to have taken on a new relevance.

As we were finishing up the picking session at the Chaffin house last night, Doug’s wife, Donna, popped in from the next room to say she felt like she ought to call our families to warn them that we were all coming home in a murderous mood, judging from some of the tunes we’d been playing. Well, truth to tell, there is something about heavy summer night air that can sometimes darken the storytelling. It was several decades ago that The Flood put its own stamp on this harrowing little Appalachian murder mystery. We don’t do the song that much anymore — only on those sultry nights when with the blood is up and the moon is down.

Ah, memories. It was an autumn weekend night nearly 50 years ago now and Pamela and Charlie went to a theater in downtown Huntington — probably the Keith-Albee — is see a new Cicely Tyson/Paul Winfield work called “Sounder.” Wow, what a wonderful movie, and Charlie especially loved the bluesy musical score performed almost exclusively by Taj Mahal, who also played the character “Ike” in the film. Charlie loved it so much, in fact, that he started haunting Davidson Records Store down the street, just waiting to buy the soundtrack LP and learn some of the tunes. And, you know, while Taj Mahal’s music was memorable, for Charlie the real star of the soundtrack was the legendary blues master Lightnin’ Hopkins doing a gospel tune called “Needed Time.” Now in the winter of 1972-73, The Flood was just getting started, and as soon as Charlie shared “Needed Time” with the band’s fellow founders Dave Peyton and Roger Samples, the song quickly got played regularly at our fledgling jam sessions. Well, of course, these days Dave and Rog are both long gone from The Flood, but the tune remains. Oh, now — like back then — we do a much livelier, more raucous version of the song than Hopkins’ solemn, soulful original, but even in its transformation, the tune is still a tribute for a special time in our lives. Here from a rehearsal back in March — before the COVID-19 shutdown started keeping us apart — is a rocking rendition of “Needed Time.”

When Paul Martin joined the band five years ago, we knew we had received riches far beyond anything we deserved. Paul has brought not only imaginative and tasteful playing and singing, but also loyal friendship and heart-warming good humor. It was only later that we discovered he also has mad skills in the recording studio! Man, our latest album — “Speechless: The Instrumentals” — wouldn’t even exist were it not for Paul the producer making magic engineering and mixing it in his mountaintop studio high above Ironton, Ohio. And last night when Paul came back down the hill to pick a bit with Doug and Charlie at the Chaffin house in Ashland, he brought his usual magic with him. Now, as we’ve said, during these hunker-down COVID-19 days, we’re not gathering the whole band together in one room right now, but we are having mini-rehearsals, two and three members at a time like that. Another treat last night is that a dear old friend, Danny Gillum, dropped by and hopped onto Doug’s upright bass to accompany us on some of the songs. Here’s the closer for that midsummer’s night, “Margaret’s Waltz.” By the way, another rendition of that tune and 15 other cool pieces are on the new album, “Speechless: The Instrumentals.” For details, including samples of all the songs, visit our website at www.1937flood.com.

These days the audience for our little minimalist, socially distanced jam sessions out on the Bowen breezeway are mostly the robins and squirrels, the mockingbirds and butterflies, but occasionally a jogger or a baby stroller will pass by on the street and wave and grin, and we do grin back, though it’s a little hard to tell from behind our darned face masks. We do hope the tunes can make up for the absence of facial expressions. Here’s a moment from earlier this week that we offered to some particularly perky young dog walkers passing by.

When The Flood first started doing this song some 40 years ago and Charlie’s sweet mother asked where such an odd little tune came from, we didn’t want to tell her the truth, so he said, “Mom, it was a popular party song in the late 1920s.” Well, it wasn’t a complete lie; it’s just the “parties” where this song was born started very late at night and were in a part of town where nice girls generally didn’t go. The song we’ve always called “Yas Yas Duck” is an old hokum jazz tune that’s been recorded under a lot different names over the years. As near as we can figure, the first recording was by the great St. Louis piano pounder James “Stump” Johnson who released it in January 1929 as “The Duck Yas-Yas-Yas.” Later that some year, new versions started cropping up, one recorded by Oliver Cobb and his Rhythm Kings and another by all-time Flood heroes Tampa Red and Georgia Tom. For us, the tune has become a kind of connective tissue between today and our old jug band roots of the 1970s and ’80s. That’s why we put it on our first commercial CD back in 2001, and why it still gets trotted out regularly at rehearsals, just so newer members of the band can learn it. This track, from a rehearsal back in early March, was bassist Paul Callicoat’s introduction to The Duck. At the beginning of the track, you’ll hear us telling him where to find the chords in his new Flood Fakebook.

In these days of rage, overwhelmed with a constant stream of angry and sad images from all across the country, peaceful moments are especially valuable. Lately the Bowens’ neighbors have been thanking us for moving our rehearsals outdoors, because they can hear the music through their opened windows. The reason for our relocation is, of course, another sadness: our ongoing worries about possibly spreading the Coronavirus have made us reluctant to call the whole band back together for now, so lately Flood rehearsals -- such as they are, are minimalist affairs -- two or three of us at a time … and socially distanced … and outside. This week started with a particular peacefulness when Michelle Lewis and Vanessa Coffman came by to share a few songs out back on the Bowen breezeway.