Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

Working on new tunes can be a little tedious — and we are preparing some new material for the upcoming December edition of the new Route 60 Saturday Night show — so sometimes during a rehearsal we just need to step back and clean out our ears with an old familiar tune. That’s why in the middle of learning some Christmas music last night, we stopped for a minute to jump back into our Charlie Poole song bag. Here’s Charlie’s wise advice — which might just resonate with some you holiday shoppers out there — now, don’t let your deal go down, ’til your last gold dollar is gone.

This time of year, most musicians are trying to think up sweet Thanksgiving-y tunes to share, you know, those songs of the over-the-river and through-the-woods variety. Nothing wrong with that. But The Flood, well, we’re a forward-looking outfit, so we’re probably the only one’s this week offering you an anthem for Black Friday. Or actually, for Black Friday NIGHT, when your money’s all gone and your mind might just be following it out the door.

We’re eager for this weekend’s big gig as The Flood again serves as the house band for the exciting new monthly music variety show, Route 60 Saturday Night! This month’s special guests are veteran singer-songwriters Chet Lowther and Douglas Imbrogno. For The Flood’s part of the show we always try to have tune or two that features our song bird, Michelle Lewis, who also co-hosts the monthly shows with the great Randy Yohe. Here’s one of Michelle’s numbers that we’ve got planned for this Route 60 Saturday Night. Remember, the show this Saturday night, Nov. 18, at Route 60 Music Co., 60 Peyton St., Barboursville, WV. The good times start at 7 p.m. For more information, visit the web site at Route60SaturdayNight.com.

Last month when singer-songwriter Rob McNurlin was prepping for his set at the new Route 60 Saturday Night show, he brought his tunes to a special Flood rehearsal. Well, he must’ve had a good time, because weeks later he found himself craving another little dose of Floodishness, and we’re so happy he did. Last night Rob came back, out of the dark and damp, for another evening at home for his adopted Flood family.

There’s just something warm and special in the air whenever we come back together after taking a week off from the rehearsals. It’s almost like we don’t really want the evening to end, as you can probably hear in this final tune from last night’s gathering. Listen to how everybody takes an extra chorus to keep the song going just little bit longer before they have to pack up the instruments, say the goodbyes and head out into the cold, damp dark.

We made some serious memories for ourselves last weekend, playing at the latest edition of what we hope will be a new tradition for us, performing as the house band for the monthly “Route 60 Saturday Night” music variety show. We even got to wrap up the evening with one of our all-time favorite songs, Walt Aldridge’s beautiful bittersweet ballad, “No Ash Will Burn.” Here it is in the last five minutes of the show, complete with host Randy Yohe’s closing thoughts.

We’re all excited about this weekend and the next edition of the new Route 60 Saturday Night musical variety show. We’re especially happy that the guest artists for this show will be fiddlin’ Bobby Taylor and his group, Kanawha Tradition, and the legendary local singer-songwriter Rob McNurlin. Now, as usual, The Flood is the house band for these monthly shows, but this month Rob has asked us to also back him up in his portion of the show. Last night Rob dropped by The Flood rehearsal so we could work up some arrangement, and we had a house full of friends and neighbors coming by to hear him. Here’s a tune from the evening, the southern gospel standard with that special Rob McNurlin touch: “I’m Working on a Building.”

We’re gearing up for the next installment of the new Route 60 Saturday Night! show later this month. The Saturday, Oct. 21, edition of this new musical variety show will feature singer-songwriter Rob McNurlin and West Virginia fiddle champion Bobby Taylor as our guest artists and, as always, The Flood as the house band. At last night’s Flood rehearsal, we decided on the tunes we’ll bring to the evening, starting with this great old 1960s rocker to get things started.

On most rehearsal nights, our first tune is just a warm-up, an easy romp to get us all on the same page. It’s often a good old blues, something that lets us just kick back and enjoy each other’s company, like this evening’s opener from a week or so ago.

Sometimes at a rehearsal, while we’re thinking about the next song to practice, another old tune will wander into the mix like a happy runaway child. Now, we’ve been playing around with Fats Wallers’ “Ain’t Misbehavin’” for, oh, we-don’t-know-how-long, and sometimes we’ll go a year or more without playing it. The interesting thing is that when the song does pop up again, the arrangement has evolved, as if it’s been humming along in the background all that time, just waiting for its chance to step up again. For last night’s version of the song, Michelle suddenly introduced sweet harmony that seems to have been inspired some great old big-band saxophone section!