The Flood has gone fully folkie on this one. Jack has switched from his snare and brushes to his fiddle and Charlie’s on the five-string. We’re paying tribute to Dave Van Ronk’s signature tune, which itself was built round a children’s play party song that known throughout the South for more than a century.
Friday, May 30, 2025
"Green Rocky Road"
Friday, May 16, 2025
"All of Me"
Nothing gets us all the the same page faster than a good old jazz standard from the 1930s.
Friday, May 9, 2025
"Moscow Night"
Here’s our take on an artifact from the Cold War, a Russian melody that we learned when it made its debut on American radios in the 1960s.
Friday, May 2, 2025
"Yellow Dog Blues"
There are a lot of train songs out there, but none of them will take us quite as far as this one. Come with us to where the Southern’ll cross the Yellow Dog!
Friday, April 25, 2025
"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone"
Around here, the best night of the week is whatever night we’re all getting together to pick. Everyone always comes in the room ready to rock. But some nights? Well, those night swing even more than usual. Last week, for instance, Danny Cox seemed to have a whole barrel of new riffs to try out on his guitar, and Jack Nuckols was absolutely cooking on his snare and high-hat. And, man, but it seemed like Randy Hamilton was rocking before he even got his bass out of the case. Just listen to how Randy’s walking bass lines puts a strut and a glide in the great old Shelton Brooks tunes from the Roarin’ Twenties. Shoot, you can probably hear Charlie grinning while he's singing.
Friday, April 18, 2025
"Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine"
Charlie first heard this centuries-old fiddle tune 50 years ago when an old friend Jim Strother played it with our favorite local string band, the good old Kentucky Foothill Ramblers. He couldn’t imagined The Flood ever playing it. However, a year or so ago, when he started studying the five-string banjo, the same old tune came rolling back in his brain. About the same time, Jack was dusting off his fiddle, and they worked it up together and then they taught it to Danny and Randy and Sam, who added their own sweet touches, and now the tune is a cool change of pace at our weekly rehearsals.
Friday, April 11, 2025
"Un Canadien Errant"
Thirty years ago, when the band first started doing this song, The Flood was back to being a trio of the original guys — Dave Peyton, Joe Dobbs and Charlie Bowen — and often on rehearsal night, the only listener in the room would be Dave’s sweet wife, Susan. At the end of the evening, when they’d ask Susie what last song she’d like to hear, it was almost always this wonderfully sad French Canadian tune, one that she remembered hearing 20 years earlier down in Louisiana when she and David and young Davy lived in Cajun country. We lost Susan three years ago this summer. This one’s for you, dear heart.
