Un Canadien Errant

David and Susie Peyton's son, Davy, is town this week and when he dropped by last night's rehearsal, The Flood got a bit nostalgic, reaching for tunes we started playing back when Davy was just a baby -- like this beautiful old French tune that we learned from the great folk duo, Ian & Sylvia. Now, honestly, being proud products of these Appalachian hills, we're a little shaky and self-conscious about our French pronunciation. In fact, whenever we play this song in a show, we always preface it by asking if anyone in the audience speaks French. If anyone raises a hand, we point and say, "For you, it's in German!"

I Have Seen Snows that Fell In May....

Last week we had one of the strangest gigs we've had in a long time. After days of temperatures in the 70s and 80s, the thermometer plunged as we were driving north to Fairmont, West Virginia, for the Friday night concert. It was down to the 50s as we took the stage at the amphitheater at Prickett's Fort State Park and by the time the show was over 90 minutes later, the mercury had dropped to 45. That along with a stiff west wind made for a fairly frigid Flood. But it also made for some laughs. For instance, we've been singing the song, "No Ash Will Burn" for a some time now -- in fact, it's featured on our latest CD -- and, to be honest, we hadn't thought much about the lyrics for a while. But Friday night, as we were shriving on stage and Charlie Bowen sang the opening lines -- "I have seen rain on a cloudless day / I have seen snows that fell in May" -- Dave Peyton leaned over and said, "Damn straight!" We cracked up and so did the audience. In this cut, we're rehearsing the tune a few days before the big Fairmont Freeze.

Fairmont, Here We Come!

The Family Flood is on the road this weekend, playing one of our favorite out-of-town venues, the amphitheater of Prickett's Fort State Park in Fairmont, West Virginia. It's a free concert this Friday night, starting at 7 o'clock. See our web site -- 1937flood.com -- for all the details. This will be the fifth or sixth time we've played this gig over the past decade or so, and we always get such a warm greeting from the folks there. In fact, we were told early on that The Flood was one of their most popular returning shows, second only to the polka band that comes down from Pennsylvania. Well, that got us thinking. Of course, The Flood doesn't have an extensive polka repertoire, but if you got a fiddler, you probably have some polka possibilities. Since the earliest days then, we never to go to Fairmont without Joe Dobbs' rollicking rendition of "Clarinet Polka." Here, from last night's rehearsal, we're dusting it off and fluffing it up for the trip north. Kick it off, Joe!

A Tune with Kathy Castner

Charlie's cousin, Kathy Castner, has never been an actual member of The Flood, but she's sung with the band frequently. Now, of course, she's too shy for some reason to get up on stage with us, but we can talk her into singing in small, informal groups, like the one that gathered this week when Kathy came in for a little visit from her home near Cincinnati. Oh, this song -- "The Rose" -- is the first tune Kathy and Charlie ever sang together. They worked out an arrangement some 30 years ago to perform it at a wedding, and we still trot it out every chance we get.

Remembering George Walker

We lost an old friend this week. The late George Walker was the producer of our second and third CDs, but he was much more than that. He was also producer of Joe Dobbs' long-running weekly "Music from the Mountains" show on West Virginia Public Radio. Not only that, George was married to Floodster Michelle Walker for a time. George's passing last weekend had us sharing stories at last night's rehearsal, like how George even found us a song to record one time. We were in the midst of planning our third CD, "I'd Rather Be Flooded," when George showed up with a rare recording of Duke Ellington playing the Cootie Williams novelty tune called "Lord, Ain't the Gravy Good?" We immediately fell in love with it and learned it in time for the recording session. Now, we haven't played the song in a while, but last night's reminiscing had us dusting it off and we think "Gravy" is now back on the menu for this summer's upcoming shows. Meanwhile, here's serving just for you, George.

Abilene

Funny how it happens. It was essentially as a warm-up tune that we started doing that old Bob Gibson/John D. Loudermilk song, "Abilene." You may remember it -- George Hamilton IV had a monster hit with it back in 1963. We never intended The Flood version of it to go anywhere, but then Michelle Walker and Randy Hamilton (uh, no relation to George... at least, not that he's told us about, anyway…) really got into the harmony vocals and suddenly the tune's started climbing up our personal weekly hit list. Don't know if "Abilene" is going to make it onto the new Flood CD, but we are expecting to add it to the list for possible recording when we go back into the studio next week, so we'll see it goes. Here's our take on the tune at last night's rehearsal. Oh, and say, if you have a thought on whether or not we should include the song on the new CD, by all means, drop us a line -- 1937flood@gmail.com.

Solid Gone

The first song Dave Peyton and I ever sang together was "Solid Gone," also known as "Cannonball Blues." It was at a New Year's Eve party in 1972 and we were trying to figure out if we knew any songs in common. Dave had learned it from old Carter Family records and I knew it as a Tom Rush number, but it was the same tune. Now, this was all very antediluvian -- before The Flood. By the following spring, Dave and I would hook up with Joe Dobbs and Roger Samples and the four of us would start The 1937 Flood. "Solid Gone" would a standard for the band for a good long while, but then it drifted away for a few decades. Only recently have we started playing it again, and we're having such a good time with it that, for all times' sake, "Solid Gone" just might find its way onto the new CD we're currently working on. Stay tuned.