"When You Say Nothing at All"

 Some songs are like old friends. This old Paul Overstreet-Don Schlitz tune that Keith Whitley made famous is certainly like that. We hadn’t played it in six months or more, and then one sultry night last August, it strolled back into the band room like it had never left. Danny Cox kicked off those first chords, then Randy Hamilton stepped up with the opening lyrics and… well, take a listen…

"Down in the Flood"

 Bob Dylan once famously spoke in a 1960s song about “a thousand telephones that don’t ring.” But that’s hardly a problem for us in our new millennium. On the contrary, we’re all walking around with phones in our pockets that are apt to sound off at the most inopportune moments. Like in the middle of this other Bob Dylan song we were playing at last week’s rehearsal when Sam St. Clair’s phone chimes in. But our Sam’s an especially cool lad, so you’d expect even his phone’s ringtone to offer something special. And it does. Wait for it: a nifty xylophone audition right about mid-song!

"Any Way She Done It"

 More than 90 years ago, this was one of the last tunes recorded by our great hokum heroes Georgia Tom and Tampa Red. But while Tom and Red decided to go their separate ways in 1932, their songs just roll on and on. Here’s one of our favorites.

"Drive In"

 We have a new old saying around here: When it doubt, let Danny do it!  Danny Cox has an abiding love for the works of Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins and his take on “Drive In” from a recent rehearsal beautifully displays those intersecting energies.

"Shawneetown"

 The sing-along — “if you know it, sing it!” as we say around here — is fundamental to folk music. As the folk music guiding spirit, Pete Seeger, once said, “I rather put songs on people’s lips than in their ears.” And for us, there’s no better sing-along than this tune, which the newest Floodster Jack Nuckols brought us about a year ago.

"Deep River Blues"

 Danny Cox and Randy Hamilton brought us this tune a year or so ago and as it matures, it just keeps enriching The Flood’s bloodstream. And it’s right on target to be included on the new album when we start work on that in the coming months. It’s an old Doc Watson tune. Here’s the latest take from a recent rehearsal. It’s “Deep River Blues.”

"San Francisco Bay Blues"

 Honestly, we don’t remember when we first started doing this song. It was back when we were youngsters at those good old folk music parties in the ‘60s. A decade later, the tune was firmly entrenched when The Flood came together. And we were still playing it in 2001 when we recorded our first album, on which it’s the closing track. That was a good call, because we often use this song to close out a show, since it gives everybody in the band one more solo before we call it a night, as you can hear in this take from last week’s rehearsal.