Joe Dobbs Gets His Happy Birthday Song from The Flood

It all started at a gig a few years back when a Flood fan said, "Hey, my brother's in the front row and it's his birthday -- would y'all play 'Happy Birthday' for him?'" We had to admit we didn't know "Happy Birthday." Well, that's back exactly true -- we recognize it when we hear it; we just never learned to play it. Then the fellow said, "So, what DO you play for birthdays?" Right there on stage, we huddled a minute and then said, "Well, how about that old jug band tune, 'You Can't Get That Stuff No More"? That got a laugh, we played the song and a new Flood tradition was born. From then on, The Flood has marked birthdays with that Tampa Red tune. Well, last night, one of our own celebrated a birthday -- Flood co-founder fiddler Joe Dobbs turned 78 -- and we had him playing on his own birthday serenade.