If You Lose Your Money (Please Don't Lose Your Mind)

If you've ever been to one of our Wednesday night jam sessions, you know that people -- players and listeners -- are always coming and going. The music evolves, depending on who's on hand at the time that particular tune is being played. Here's a case in point. On this evening, our lead guitarist, Jacob Scarr, had just arrived and tuned up as we were launching into this old Sonny Terry-Brownie McGhee number. Then midway through, harmonicat Sam St. Clair came in, took his seat, grabbed a harp and hopped onboard before the song was done.

Picking with Rog

Roger Samples, one of the founders of The Flood, is a bit under the weather these days, so recently The Flood made a house call. Joe Dobbs and Charlie Bowen hit the road, hooking up with Buddy Griffin and Rog's brother Mack for a few hours of music in Roger's Mount Sterling, Ky., home. During the more than 10 years he played regularly with The Flood, Rog brought in so many tunes for us to do, from beautiful Michael Peter Smith ballads to crazy jugband tunes.

Dinah

Folks who regularly drop in to our Wednesday night jam sessions are privy to a pretty badly kept secret: namely, that we don't really have arrangements for our music. A tune for The Flood is like a pair of comfortable old shoes that's been worn in just right by slipping them and dancing around. Jam session regulars listen as new tunes come into the mix and get softened up by repetition each week. Here's a case in point -- we've just started playing with this great old 1926 Ethel Waters standard and in this track, you can hear we're still experimenting with it.

Come See Our New Videos!

We've got a little something different this week. Instead of our regular audio podcast, we're inviting you to come over to our website and check out a few new videos. Our good friends, Norman and Shirley Davis invited us to a party last night at The Wyngate, their new retirement home in Barboursville, West Virginia -- just us and 30 or 40 of their closest friends. We had a ball playing for this bunch, and Pamela captured some cool video. Come take a look -- visit our web site at www.1937flood.com and click the banner at the top of the front page.

Roger Samples, on Joe Dobbs' "Music from the Mountains," 2002

In October 2002, when Joe Dobbs' weekly "Music from the Mountains" show was in its 19th year on West Virginia Public Radio, Rog Samples was the guest, singing and playing tunes live with Joe, and listening to cuts from Samples Brothers' CDs. He also reminisced about his early days of music in the coffeehouses, at Marshall, in high school in Clendenin, WV. And he and Joe talked about Rog's songwriting and about his children's music. Sit back and enjoy -- this audio track is about 40 minutes long.

Jesse Smith Sittin' In

Joe Dobbs has been knowing guitar player Jesse Smith of Wadsworth, Ohio, near Akron, for five or six years now, but this was the first time some of the rest of us got to meet him. On his way to the Cabin Fever Pickin' Party in Hampton, Va., Jesse came with Joe to sit with us and the finger-picking phenom sweetened up everything we played. Here are a couple of samples.