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PODCAST

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast

Each week The 1937 Flood, West Virginia"s most eclectic string band, offers a free tune from a recent rehearsal, show or jam session. Music styles range from blues and jazz to folk, hokum, ballad and old-time. All the podcasts, dating back to 2008, are archived on our website; you and use the archive for free at: http://1937flood.com/pages/bb-podcastarchives.html 1937flood.substack.com

music music history

All Episodes

5:21

"Twisted Laurel" (with Banjocity)

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/09/08

We have great memories of attending folk festivals over the years. One of the fondest is the time we heard the original Red Clay Ramblers back in 1977. That was just a few years after that great old band formed, and it drove up to play a festival in Grayson County, Ky.We in the fledgling Flood had bought The Ramblers’ new album, and we were simply blown away by its second track. How astounding it was to discover that one of the best new songs about West Virginia was recorded by a North Carolina

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3:24

"Crazy Words, Crazy Tune"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/09/01

A hundred years ago, much of America was having a wild and crazy party. Forgot about the labor wars. Forgot about the spread of Jim Crow and the KKK marching in Washington. Forgot about the doors banging shut on immigrants.Don’t be a party pooper, jake. The war was over. The plague of the “Spanish Flu” was declining. The stock market was soaring. Oh sure, alcohol was still prohibited, but… shhhhh, wink, wink, nod, nod … we know a place …It was The Roarin’ Twenties. Flappers. Raccoon coats. Cars

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4:06

"Autumn Leaves"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/08/25

Of all the tunes we do, none is more evocative than “Autumn Leaves.”Joseph Kosma’s post World War II composition quickly became a jazz standard in America from the 1950s right up to today. “Autumn Leaves” actually is the tale of two torch songs,” music journalist Bill DeMain notes. “The original, written in French as “Les Feuilles Mortes” (meaning, “Dead Leaves”), was a dark lament of lost love and regret. “The translated version,” DeMain says, “ touched on the same theme, but in a gentler, more

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3:53

"Ain't the Gravy Good?"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/08/18

We tend to think of Duke Ellington and his orchestra as the epitome of cool, sophisticated jazz. “Mood Indigo.” “Caravan.” “Black And Tan Fantasy.” “Sophisticated Lady.”But Duke and the guys also could get down and party, especially when the festivities were organized by his lead trumpeter, Cootie Williams.Williams, a Mobile, Alabama, native, was just 18 when he joined Ellington’s orchestra in 1929, rising to prominence when the group played in New York’s famed Cotton Club. Despite his youth,

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5:52

"Pretty Polly"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/08/11

Americans know “Pretty Polly” as the short, tragic story of a young woman who is lured into the forest and murdered by her brutal lover, who then buries her in a shallow grave and runs away.Actually, though, the oldest versions of this song — which has its origins almost 300 years ago in Great Britain — needed up to 36 verses to tell its grim story.In the original English ballad — called “The Gosport Tragedy” or “The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter” — the murderer is a sailor who promised to marry the girl

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4:22

"Blue Moon"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/08/04

The only blue moon of 2023 appears later this month, so it’s high time we dusted off our latest rendition of the world’s best-loved anthem to this particular astronomical event.“Blue Moon” came into being around 1934 after famed composers Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were brought from New York to Hollywood by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and commissioned to produce songs for a film called Hollywood Party, which was to star many of the studio's top artists.“One of our ideas,” Rodgers later recalled, “was

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5:21

"Delia's Gone"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/07/28

Our version of this traditional tune originated with Roger Samples and the quiet picking sessions he and Charlie Bowen had back in the mid-1970s. They had been listening to David Bromberg’s then-new debut album, on which they both liked Bromberg’s arrangement of something that Philadelphia folkie called “Dehlia.” But of course, as usual, Samples had his own ideas for the song. Crafting a new melody that he borrowed from assorted sources — versions had been recorded over the years by everyone from

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3:41

"Don't Get Around Much Anymore"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/07/21

When we roll into Sal’s Speakeasy tomorrow night for The Flood’s monthly gig, we’ll bring with us a tune that has been rocking audiences for more than eight decades. And that, brothers and sisters, is the definition of a hit!Bob Russell’s Big BreakOur tale begins with a young man named Bob Russell who was making his living in New York as an advertising copywriter, but who also nurtured a love for music and theater. He had dabbled in writing material for vaudeville and later wrote for movies, but his

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4:00

"Didn't He Ramble?"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/07/14

Looking for songs to play in our nightly pre-show set as Alchemy Theater’s wonderful Bright Star musical enters its final weekend tonight, we hit on one of the oldest tunes in The Flood’s repertoire, a rollicking number that relates the deeds and misadventures of a rambling ne’er-do-well named Buster.It was nearly 50 years ago when we first heard “Didn’t He Ramble?” Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen learned it from the great local string band, The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers, whose leader, banjoist H

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4:57

We're Joining "Bright Star" on Stage!

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/07/07

The Flood is honored and thrilled to be invited by Mike Murdock and Nora Ankrom to be part of their Alchemy Theater’s new production of the musical, Bright Star. This evening is opening night!The show runs for the next two weekends, July 7-9, 14-16 at Huntington’s new Geneva Kent Center for the Arts at 68 Holley Ave. Doors open at 7 p.m. each evening. In addition, there is one matinee performance at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 9.Besides joining the wonderful Mark Smith and John Kinley in the house band,

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5:52

"I Got a Secret (Shake Sugaree)"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/06/30

Okay, up front let’s just get this out of the way. We don’t know what “sugaree” is, or why you would want to shake it, or what’d happen if you did.And apparently nobody else knows either.Our Story Begins…Let’s start our story in the mid-1960s, when folk music legend Elizabeth Cotten recorded her new album, Shake Sugaree.“That’s more my grandchildren’s song,” Libba Cotten later told Mike Seeger about the title tune. “They made the verses and I played the music. The first verse my oldest grandson, he

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4:03

"500 Miles Away from Home"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/06/23

Sixty years ago this summer, Ironton, Ohio, native son Bobby Bare started work on his debut album for RCA Victor. The LP’s title track — “500 Miles Away from Home” — would turn out to be one of the best-selling singles in the 88-year-old Bare’s long career.Composition of the song is generally credited to folksinger Hedy West, who is said to have put it together from fragments of a melody she heard her uncle sing to her back in her native Georgia. One of Hedy’s influences was a traditional tune

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2:43

"Drive In"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/06/16

Guitarists Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins had a special, productive musical bond.Reed rather famously lived in the moment, often writing wonderfully tasty riffs and licks only to forget them the next day when he moved on to a new project. By contrast, Atkins was a detail-driven professional and a successful producer.Chet appreciated, completed and recorded many of Jerry's pieces after practicing and polishing them to perfection. “Drive-In,” which our Danny Cox explores in this week’s podcast, is a prime

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6:28

"Summertime"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/06/09

Barefoot Days have arrived, a season so sweet and easy that it has its own anthem.“Summertime,” from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, is perhaps the perfect jazz standard. Unforgettable lyrics. A melody that seems to be from a dream. Like magic, the song sounds new every single time, no matter how many times you’ve heard it.And you’ve heard it many times. “Summertime” is one of the most recorded songs of all times; in fact, Guinness World Records is aware of more than 67,000 individual recordings

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4:35

"You're No Good"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/06/02

“You’re No Good,” the opening song on Bob Dylan’s 1962 eponymous debut album, was written, not by the 19-year-old genius, but by one of his heroes, Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller.Legend has it that Dylan saw and heard Fuller perform that song himself in 1960 at Denver’s Exodus coffeehouse shortly after it opened in the basement of the Raylane Hotel. The venue was managed by the late folk singer Walt Conley.Bobby in DenverA few months earlier, Dylan was still back in Minneapolis’s Dinkytown bohemian

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4:57

"Castle of Dromore (October Winds)"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/05/26

Our story begins nearly 200 years ago on an Irish hillside overlooking the Kenmare River in County Kerry, where a massive manor house was to be built for the Mahony family.The Mahonys had long wanted a castle atop that hill. In the early 19th century, John Mahony made the decision to build a large home there, but he lost heart for the project when his boat — returning from London with lead for the roof and wine for the cellar — sank in the river, in full view of the intended site.After that, the

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3:02

"Walk Right In"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/05/19

Among the tunes we’ve got on tap to share at Sal’s Speakeasy this weekend is one with a curious history. A monster AM radio hit in the early 1960s, it actually was originally a jug band tune recorded many decades earlier.Back in the 1920s, a remarkable roots musician named Gus Cannon co-wrote “Walk Right In” for his hot new band, Cannon’s Jug Stompers, to record for Victor Records.Already an established entertainer in the first years of commercial recording, Gus Cannon had a life story that reads

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6:52

"The Dutchman"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/05/12

What is probably America’s best-known song about the Netherlands — “The Dutchman” — was written by a man who had never been there.“The song has in it almost everything I'd ever read or heard, in school and in the library, about Holland,” composer Michael Peter Smith told a fan in 2010, about 40 years after he wrote the song at the very start of his career.Did he ever consider singing it in Holland? Oh, hell no!“Can you imagine,” Smith said, “the reception a Dutch singer would get in New York City

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5:41

"Lazarus"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/05/05

When Joel and Ethan Coen needed help with the soundtrack for their fabulous 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? they turned to respected artist/producer T-Bone Burnett, a famous champion of long-forgotten folk music. Thinking about how the film was to be set in Depression-era Mississippi and to open with a scene of an escape from a prison chain-gang, Burnett studied some legendary field recordings by American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax. There he found a gem.From the Library of Congress

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4:06

"Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2023/04/28

It’s a song that has just never gotten the respect it deserves. It was back in 1967 that Washington State folkster Danny O’Keefe wrote “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.”O’Keefe waited four years to record it, putting it on his 1971 self-titled debut album. That effort was largely ignored, so he gave the tune another shot the following year with a slower, more downbeat arrangement for his second album, O’Keefe. This version did a bit better, especially when it also was released as a single. The

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