Don't Let Your Deal Go Down

Well, The Flood is back in the studio, working on the new CD. This will be our fifth album in 12 years. For this one, we're returning to Huntington's Trackside Studio to call on the production assistance of the extraordinary Bud Carroll, a young man with wonderfully old, educated ears.  Anyone who's attended a Flood rehearsal lately knows we've been focused like a laser on the material we're planning for this new release, like this old Charlie Poole tune, "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down."

Lady Be Good ... and Fast

When you've been around as long as this band has, you learn a few things. One thing we've learned is that songs sometimes rehabilitate themselves. Here's a case in point. About 10 years ago, we put the tune "Lady Be Good" on a CD. Perhaps we didn't like the song after that, or maybe we just got tired of it, but for whatever reason, for more than a decade, it fell off The Flood's playlist. Until last night. As we were getting ready to rehearse, Doug Chaffin started playing the tune on his guitar and, in a flash, the lady was back. And she was good. Now, we don't want to say she was better than she used to be, but she certainly was was faster.

Since I Fell For You

It's great how songs can remind you of specific times and places. At this week's rehearsal, when Michelle Walker and Doug Chaffin launched into "Since I Fell for You," we were transported back to a  snowy Saturday night in Charleston four or five years ago. We were playing a FOOTMAD concert, sharing the bill with another great band, Stewed Mulligan. It had been a fun evening of jug band songs and general silliness, blues and fiddle tunes and old-time string band music, so when Michelle started this classic 1940s jazz standard, a hush fell over the audience. In seconds, though, people were humming along, then they cheered so much for Doug's sweet mandolin solo that he had to take a second chorus. Finally, by the time Michelle got to the end of the number, people were on the feet to cheer her. What a sweet memory.