Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

You don’t know how much you miss something until it’s gone. Think about how much we communicate with each other with just a wink and a smile. That’s certainly true in the band; when we’re bopping along on a tune, the facial expressions we exchange often say more than the words themselves. But of course, in these times of COVID-19, we’re suddenly handicapped. Oh, we’re still grinning; it’s just that the masks we’re now wearing for each other’s protection are hiding our smiles. But leave to Michelle Lewis to come up with a solution. If you can’t show a smile, you can at least sing about one, as she does in this tune. Oh, and here’s an interesting thing about this song. The great comic genius Charlie Chaplin wrote the music for this piece to be part of the soundtrack for his 1936 film classic, “Modern Times.” The lyrics and title were added nearly 20 years later by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, based on lines and themes from the movie. And, finally, a word about this particular performance. In an abundance of caution, we’re still not getting the entire band together for rehearsals right now, but earlier this week, Michelle dropped by so she and Charlie could sit on the porch try this song out, just the two of them. We’re still deciding whether to keep it in The Flood repertoire when the whole band finally gets back together. Let us know what you think! Your thoughts will make us … well, smile.

It seems odd that a tune we’ve been playing for nearly a half century now had never made it onto one of The Flood’s commercial CDs. But we’ll finally rectify that situation when our latest album — called “Speechless: The Instrumentals” — is released in the next few weeks. The song in question is “Star of the County Down,” a lovely Irish melody that the late Joe Dobbs introduced us to at those weekend-long music parties in the 1970s, the wild, wonderful hippy bashes at which The Flood was busy being born. Back then, Joe taught the tune to Roger Samples, and Rog taught it to Dave Peyton and Charlie. Joe’s song has been learned and re-learned by new generations of Floodsters over the decades since then. In this track from a rehearsal back in late January, you can hear that tradition continuing. As we start the song, our newest bandmate, Paul Callicoat, is listening; then as we come toward the end, Paul’s got it and in comes his beautiful bass to join us for the final chorus. Here’s 2020 version of “Star of the County Down.”

Hearing her first dozen notes, you know that Vanessa Coffman is playing her favorite song. Listen to the next couple dozen notes and you know she has all the other players in the room falling in love with it too. The time is a deep, dark February night — a few days before Valentine’s Day, actually. The place: The Flood’s rehearsal room at the Bowen house. The tune: “Georgia on My Mind.” Now, sit back, give us five minutes and listen to this little musical love story unfold.

“Moonglow” is a very forgiving song. In the many years we’ve been doing this great old 1930s jazz standard that Benny Goodman and Joe Venuti made famous, we’ve not always handled it gently — we’ve played it too fast, we’ve played it too slow, like a heavy-handed blues — and yet, class act that it is, the song has always given us something back. But it was only when Michelle Lewis took over the vocals that we truly began to appreciate the beautiful of this classic Eddie DeLange-Will Hudson composition. It’s in Michelle’s able hands that the tune unfolds like a favorite scene from a good novel. And because the song is so richly shaded, every time a new player comes into our room, “Moonglow” reveals something else about itself. For instance, on this particular take, listen to how the tune takes a light, almost spring-like turn as soon as Veezy Coffman and her tenor sax drop in with a couple of sweet choruses in last couple of minutes of recording. Here then, from a rehearsal back in February, is our 2020 rendition of “Moonglow.”

We’ve been playing around with Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose” for more than a decade now and, it’s funny, but just when we think we've got it nailed down, the band’s membership changes and we have to start all over. Here’s a fun moment from a Flood rehearsal back in February. You’ll hear the track start out with Charlie talking to our new bass player, Paul Callicoat, about how we approach the song. Then as we launch into it, you’ll hear Doug say he can’t remember his part, and Charlie assuring him he’ll think of something. And of course, he does. Things start really rocking when Michelle comes in with her high, cool vocal lead. Meanwhile, Vanessa Coffman has been taking all this in, so when we call for a little saxophone about midway through the tune, Veezy’s ready with a couple tasty choruses. Oh, be sure to hang around for Doug’s comment at the end. Hey, it’s all in an evening’s work/fun in The Flood house.

Musicians have always understood Brother Aristotle’s comment that the whole is greater than the sum of its part. After all, that’s what musicians always try to do when they sit down in a circle to play: to make something bigger than all of them put together. And the secret to the magic in music is a simple one: Just listen to each other. Here’s an example from a recent Flood rehearsal. Listen to how right from the start, Paul Callicoat’s bass is putting down a heartbeat-like rhythm that beautifully reflects the mood of the lyrics. Then midway through, listen to how Veezy Coffman’s sax solo builds on the simple, solemn mood that Sam St. Clair outlines with his harmonica two choruses earlier. Oh, and then toward the end of the tune, hear how for his mandolin solo, Paul Martin beautifully continues the lines that Doug Chaffin has been laying down in the fills he’s playing on his guitar between the lines of the vocals. Yes, listen closely and you’ll hear there’s much more to this story than just the lyrics Charlie and Michelle are singing.

"Social distancing" doesn’t come naturally to most musicians. We’re a hugging, humming, harmonizing kind of people who generally don’t suffer solitude gladly. But during this awful Coronavirus pandemic, we are behaving ourselves — staying at home, washing our hands, not touching our faces. It’s now been a month since the Family Flood has been together in the same room, and we miss each other terribly. But our family, like yours, will get through this thing. Meanwhile, for these weekly podcasts, we continue to rely on recordings from months ago, and some of them suddenly seem especially poignant. For instance, back in mid-winter, when Michelle and guys did this tune at a rehearsal, we had no idea how in just a few weeks it would have us longing for the simple pleasure of just being back together.

For many of us, this pandemic thing got real about week ago when we learned that singer/composer John Prine had been hospitalized with the COVID-19 virus. And then last night we were absolutely heartbroken to learn that John — called by many the Mark Twain of American songwriting — had lost that fight, dead at 73. So, we are in mourning today. But we’re also thinking about something we read that John said one time. He said, “I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness all get swirled up inside you." John will certainly be living inside of us in The Flood. We started doing his tunes more than 40 years ago, just ripping ‘em right that first album in the early 1970s. And now, decades later, we’re still adding John Prine tunes to our songbag. Just recently, for instance, we started doing a song from John’s “Storm Windows” album that he released in 1980, a song that our old partner the late Roger Samples was partial to. Here from a rehearsal a few months ago is “One Red Rose.”

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee are two of our all-time favorite blues artists. Back in the late 1950s, the pair recorded an incredible album for Smithsonian Folkways called "Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing.” It was from that album that we took our inspiration for this blues with which we often open or close a rehearsal session, just because it's so much fun to play. Now, we don’t do the tune the way Sonny and Brownie did it; the whole “folk process” idea calls on us all to bring our own style and attitude to the music we play. And that was something that Sonny and Brownie certainly knew, because they too were building on the blues they had heard from their heroes. The evidence is that the song’s provocative key line — “If you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind” — didn’t originate with them. Back in 1936, Blind Boy Fuller used exactly the same line in his recording of “Keep Away From My Woman.” But it didn’t start with him either; seven years earlier, in 1929, Blind Joe Reynolds used the same line to open his tune, “Outside Woman Blues,” a song, incidentally, that would be covered 40 years later by the rock group Cream. So, hey, the bottom line is we’re in very good company in offering our take on the tune. Here it is, then, from a recent Flood rehearsal, with a double helping of solos from everyone, Doug, the two Pauls, Vanessa and Sam. It’s “If You Lose Your Money.” P { margin-bottom: 0.08in }

More than 90 years ago, composer and pianist Spencer Williams wrote the great jazz standard “Basin Street Blues,” but here’s something we didn’t know until recently. Its wonderful opening lyric — “Won’t ya come along with me… Come along with me…. Down to the Mississippi…” was added later by Glenn Miller and Jack Teagarden. Ahhh, you live, you learn. The Flood started doing the tune about a decade ago at the suggestion of our late fiddler, Joe Dobbs, and when Joe died five years ago, the tune seemed to go with him. However, earlier this year, when jazz saxophonist Veezy Coffman started coming around, darned if Basin Street come back out! Here from a recent rehearsal is our 2020 version of the song, which Spencer William wrote as a kind of jazz-infused churchy call and response. Listen as Veezy opens the musical testimony, answered by the chorus of Doug, Sam and the two Pauls. Then the whole thing is turned over to Michelle who, always, nails the vocals.