Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

We've been hard at work this year on our sixth CD, and we're excited to bring it out later this summer. This is our first LIVE, IN CONCERT album, which we recorded at a show last January. It features tunes that are not on any our previous five CDs, songs like "St. Louis Blues" and "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Autumn Leaves" and "Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia," "Ramblin' Boy" and "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune." In addition, this CD is the first appearance of our newest Floodster Paul Martin, whose mandolin and guitar work and vocals have added so much to our sound. Paul also is mixing and editing the new album. Because we're eager to share with you what we've been working on, here are some sound samples from the new disc. And if you want to know more about the new album, visit our website at www.1937flood.com, where you can also pre-order the disc if you like to reserve your copy. Enjoy!

When word got out that our buddy Jacob Scarr would be heading back to his Colorado home at the end of the week, his fans came out for last night's Flood rehearsal, including his old friend Chuck Romine. So we had the youngest and the eldest Floodster emeritus jamming at the same table, just like old times. And of course, Jacob always brings out our better blues moods, so, naturally, we had to get a little jelly roll going in his honor.

It's always special when Floodster Emeritus Jacob Scarr comes home from Colorado for a Flood family reunion, and last night we had a little surprise waiting for Youngblood. It's been since his last trip home that Doug Chaffin got his sweet little Paul Reed Smith electric guitar, and Doug was eager to put it in Jacob's hands for a few tunes, like this one. Back a few years ago when Jacob was a regular in the band before he left for college in Boulder, we combined a couple of classic blues numbers -- Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man" and Muddy Waters' "Seventh Son" -- to make a special showcase number just for Jacob, and last night we revisited that tune for the first time in years, with Jacob wailing on Doug's guitar.

The Flood is pleased to be part of the opening night of Huntington's Jewel City Jamboree this weekend down by the riverside. We'll be playing at 5:30 Friday evening at Harris Riverfront Park as part of a great lineup of more than a half dozen bands on that night alone, including Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time and Riders in the Sky! We in The Flood plan to try out a few new arrangements during our set, including this one that we worked out last night for a classic Tom Paxton tune.

You know, The Flood always takes note of Bob Dylan's birthday, and today's is an especially significant one. Happy 75th, Baby Blue! Bobby was born on this day in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941. I'm sure a few Dylan tunes will be on the agenda at tonight's regular weekly Flood rehearsal, like this one that we uncorked a few weeks ago, letting Doug Chaffin and Paul Martin stretch out on the choruses. Happy birthday, Mister Z.

Regular listeners know we've been experimenting with e-lec-tricity lately. Randy Hamilton usually provides the band's heartbeat with his beautiful acoustic-electric bass, and lately Doug Chaffin has been doing his gorgeous guitar work on his sweet new Paul Reed Smith solid-body electric. However, as we prepare for the Joe Dobbs tribute show at Charleston's Vandalia Gathering on May 28, we're going back to our acoustic roots. Doug has moved back to his upright bass and Randy is giving his acoustic six-string a workout, and we were playing with the new -- old -- sound at last night's rehearsal as we were going "Up a Lazy River."

We are so happy that this year's Vandalia Gathering in Charleston will feature a tribute to our buddy, Flood co-founder Joe Dobbs, who passed away last September. And The Flood is honored to be invited to be part of that special tribute, set for Saturday night, May 28, at the cultural center on the state capitol grounds. We've begun to pull together the tunes we'll share in our part of the show, including -- of course -- this one.

For our weekly rehearsals, there are tunes that tend to open the evening and others that often close a session. And then there are special tunes that -- like old friends -- make us happy whenever they drop by. This old number by the Mississippi Sheiks -- "Sittin' on Top of the World" -- is just such a song, perfect for starting or capping off a fun evening with The Flood.

It was a dark and stormy night and about half the band couldn't make it to the weekly rehearsal, but for those who did, it was a memorable evening. While it was damp and cold outside, it was warm and bright around the table where we came for coffee and conversation and, of course, the tunes, like this great old Blind Blake number, "Good As I Been to You."

The Flood is proud of being West Virginia's most eclectic string band, one that can swing from jug band tunes to jazz standards of the 1940s to, well, this French Canadian folk song of the 1840s that we learned from an Ian & Sylvia album, oh, many decades ago. Now, we make no claims to the preciseness of our French pronunciation. No, no -- on the contrary, whenever we do this song live, we ask if anyone in the audience actually speaks French. If anyone says yes, we say, "Okay, well, for you this song is in German."