Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

 Our old friend and band mate Dave Peyton is much on our mind today, because this is the second anniversary of his death.  We pay him tribute with a new take on an Aunt Jennie Wilson song that he brought us, gee, decades ago, a version that features Randy’s harmony vocals, and solos by Sam and by our newest Floodsters, Danny and Veezy, along with my first outing on banjo.  Yeah, everything old is new again and, while the lyrics might say that “Georgie Buck is dead,” darned if his song doesn’t seem more alive than ever.

 Honestly, we don’t know how a band that’s been around for nearly half a century — one that has a special love for novelty and good-time tunes of the 1920s and ‘30s — could have ever missed this one, but the fact is it’s only recently that The Flood has been playing around with this classic from the Roarin’ Twenties. Guess it just took our newest members — Veezy Coffman and Danny Cox — to open our ears to it. And we’re sure glad they did.

 This one has really deep roots. About 20 years after The Coasters released this song in 1957, The Flood started fiddling with it one fun summer night. After that, though, it went to sleep again for, oh, a half century or so. Then last winter, Randy started singing harmony with Charlie on the chorus and suddenly the song was back, evolving into a fine vehicle for cool solos by Danny, Veezy and Sam.

 Back in the days when we would ride on — and occasionally even got to perform on — the good ol’ Delta Queen steamboat, it often meant a reunion with a dear friend, the boat’s band leader, the legendary New Orleans cornetist Connie Jones.   We learned “Memphis in June” from Connie. On his album, it was an instrumental, but whenever we’d ask for it on board the boat, Connie would sing it. Here from a recent rehearsal is our take on the tune,  conjuring up memories of sunny days up in The Delta Queen’s Texas Lounge, seeing Connie, eyes closed and grinning as he purred those sweet Paul Francis Webster lyrics. Here then, in memory of Connie Jones, is Hoagy’s sweet love song to summer.

 This isn’t one of Hoagy Carmichael’s better known tunes, but it could easily become your favorite, especially this time of year. “Memphis in June” is a sweet love song to summer that is “peacefully dandy.”

 Our buddy Doug Chaffin wasn’t feeling too swell earlier this week when Randy Hamilton, Danny Cox and Charlie Bowen landed on his doorstep. However, we brought with us a secret medicine just guaranteed to make him feel better. It’s Charlie’s new guitar, a sweet 2016 D’Angelico Excel — a hollow-body arch top jazz box, which we immediately put into Doug’s experienced hands. Well, after he’d strummed a chord or two, we could hear Doug already smiling behind his face mask. Listen to him just swinging in the living room on this great old jazz standard.

 Nineteen years ago, when we went into the studio to record our third album engineered by the late, great George Walker, “Midnight Special” was the first number we laid down. After that, though, for some reason  the tune just sort of drifted out of the collective consciousness. That is, until lately. Our old buddy, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin, has dropped into the jam sessions recently and it’s got us revisiting some of the good old folkier corners of our repertoire. Here’s a moment from a week or so ago.

 We’ll be returning to one of our all-time favorite local venues next week, playing for the good folks up the hill at Woodlands Retirement Community. It’s a wonderful venue where we’ve played regularly for the past 20 years or more. And this time, our old buddy, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin, is back to sit in with us. Here’s one of the tunes we’re dusting off for the evening, you know, just in case Lulu is in the audience.

 Over the years, many of renditions of this song have presented the tune slowly and deliberately, but that’s not our style. Anyone who knows us knows The Flood is not really dirge-friendly. In fact, years ago, our beloved co-founder Dave Peyton said that if The Flood had a spirit animal, it probably would be Leon Redbone. So, our take on “Am I Blue?” is how we imagine Brother Redbone would do it.

 Can you ever hear someone smiling? Maybe. On this track, as we’re sitting around with one of the great Louis Armstrong’s favorite songs, “Dinah,” we bet you can hearing the grins going around the room as you listen to all the musical bantering, like Veezy playfully comping behind the vocals, and Danny’s happy passing chords under the solos. Joy has many expressions — and some of them just might be hummable.