Honeysuckle Rose

 At a recent rehearsal, we tapped Veezy Coffman to choose the last tune of the night. Without hesitation, she called for “Honeysuckle Rose.” You know,  sometimes we’re amazed at the affinity she has for songs that are, some of them, nearly five times older than she is. But then again, listening to her loving, lively treatment of this great old Fats Waller jazz classic affirms for us all over again that music has a lot more to do with head and heart than it does with ticks on a clock or numbers on a calendar. Ah, tell it, Veezy!

Lovin' You Would Be So Good for Me

About 20 years ago this summer, Joe Dobbs asked the boys in his band to come up with a theme song for his show, “Music from the Mountains” which by then had been a huge weekend favorite on West Virginia Public Radio for decades. Honestly, we were fresh out of ideas for a new song until Charlie remembered a tune he had written maybe five years earlier, one he’d never done anything with. So in the summer 2002, we re-appropriated that melody, Dave Peyton wrote some cool new lyrics for it and The Flood just sort of put it all together one evening in the studio. In fact, the show’s producer, George Walker, left the recorder running and happened to capture the moment as that particular sausage was being made. From then on, that theme was used every week until the show ended its quarter-of-a-century run about a decade ago. But long before Joe Dobbs’ passing six years ago, we’d pretty much stopped playing the song. Still, lately that old melody has been on Doug Chaffin’s mind and he’s been urging us to resurrect it. So, as a hoot, we’ve tarted playing a bit with my original composition, a silly little song from the ‘90s that Charlie called “Lovin’ You Would Be So Good for Me.” So, for the record, here’s a little taste of it. From a jam session at the Chaffin house a week or so ago, this is the tune that reinvented itself as Joe Dobbs’ theme song.

Creative Listening with Veezy Coffman

 When she’s not playing with The Flood or working on her double-major at Marshall University, our saxophonist Veezy Coffman can often be seen and heard playing solo jazz sets at cool venues all around the Tri-State Area. For instance, she’s performing twice this weekend: Friday night in The Guitar Bar at The Winchester in Ashland, Ky., and then Saturday night back here in Huntington at the New Jockey Club downtown in The Frederick. Now, it was in just such a jazzy solo set that we first heard Veezy a year and a half ago and we couldn’t wait to get her into our band. We learn a lot from this 20 year old, especially about creative listening. Here’s a cool example of what we mean by that. At a rehearsal a few weeks ago, Doug Chaffin started playing “Around the World Waltz,” a tune that he learned from a 1990s Byron Berline album called “Jumping the Strings.” (Oh, incidentally, we were sad to hear of Byron’s death last week; what an amazing, influential fiddler he was!) Anyway, Veezy had never heard the tune before, so at the start of this track, just listen to her listen to it, and then, when it’s her turn, hear how she improvises her lovely impressions of that melody. Of course, Veezy learns some stuff from us too, such as how rock along on a blues with the give and take in an ensemble of band mates who are all just making it up as they go! You can hear it on the second half of this track, after the waltz, in her wailing in the final choruses of “Yellow Dog Blues.”

You Don't Know Me

 Eighteen years ago this month, our late fiddler Joe Dobbs brought a young woman to a rehearsal to meet the band. The plan was to work out just a couple of tunes for her to sing with us at a gig we would be playing that weekend at Snowshoe Resort in the mountains of West Virginia’s Pocahontas County. Now, needless to say, we all fell in love with Michelle — she was Michelle Walker in those days, later to be Michelle Lewis —and that one evening led to a rich musical life together. Now, right now these are very busy days for Lady Michelle — she’s packing up to move away to join her fiancé, Rich, who lives in Loveland, Ohio, just northeast of Cincinnati. But recently she made time to join us at Doug Chaffin’s house for an evening of reminiscing on all her favorite songs from over the years. Here’s a highlight of that night.