When the room needs a respite from the band’s frequent fare of loud and raucous tunes, Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox always have just what the doctor ordered.

Friends since high school, these two seem to be able to read each other’s mind when it comes to music. Just listen to how they make this 60-year-old Danny O’Keefe composition sound like something they themselves just wrote.

As reported here earlier, O’Keefe, a Washington State folkster, wrote “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” in 1967, but its early trips to the recording studio were largely fruitless.

Danny’s own recordings of the tune in 1971 and ’72 were generally ignored. But then the following year the song played a part in the turning point in another artist’s career.

When Waylon Did the Song

That’s when country music star Waylon Jennings had started getting restless, wanting to wrestle creative control away from the slick, over-produced “Nashville Sound” establishment that he had grown tired of.

The seminal Good Hearted Woman album, quickly followed by Ladies Love Outlaws and Lonesome, On’ry and Mean were Waylon’s personal declaration of independence, establishing him as a prominent representative of the new “outlaw country” movement.

Watching and listening from the sidelines, O’Keefe later said that Jennings’ cover of “Good Time Charlie” on that third of those albums was his absolute favorite version of his own song, capturing the groove and swagger he had always intended.

And O’Keefe’s lyrics — about aging, watching friends drift away and using “pills to ease the pain” — perfectly fit the rugged, hyper-honest persona of the burgeoning outlaw movement.

When Willie Answered

A half dozen years later, Waylon’s fellow outlaw Willie Nelson also took a turn with the tune, but his take of “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” gave it a much different vibe.

On his 1979 collaborative album with Leon Russell, One for the Road, Willie treated the song as an intimate, jazz-infused acoustic prayer.

In his characteristic style of singing slightly behind the beat, Willie captured the lyrics’ quiet, lonely acceptance of sitting in an empty room after the party is over, much as Randy and Danny do in this rendering from a recent Flood rehearsal.

For more on the history of this lovely tune, see this earlier Flood Watch article.

Mid-Year Report

So, we’ve reached the midpoint of 2026. If you’d like a sample of what the Floodisphere has been sounding like so far this year, tune into Radio Floodango.

Its “Hear by Year” section enables you to aim your time machine at the podcasts of any specific year since 2009. Click to here to reach the 2026 tunes.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com