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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

4:57

"Black Eye Blues"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/01/03

One of the most curious and complicated characters on the great American musical landscape is Thomas A. Dorsey.A deeply religious man, Dorsey often is called “the father of gospel music,” because he inspired a movement that popularized bluesy gospel songs in churches across America starting in the mid-20th century.Some 3,000 songs — a third of them gospel — were written by Dorsey in his 90 years, including “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and “Peace in the Valley.” Now, then, about those other 2,000

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5:29

"Stardust"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/27

Hoagy Carmichael was not quite 28 years old when he wrote what music historians consider THE song of the 20th century.Just how big is “Stardust” in the Great American Songbook?* Well, for starters, this is a song that has been recorded as an instrumental or a vocal more than 1,500 times. * Forty years after its publication in 1928, it was still earning more than $50,000 annually in royalties. * The lyrics that Mitchell Parish later brought to Hoagy’s song have been translated into 30

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12:58

A Christmas Card for You

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/24

If there’s only one day a year when you are nostalgic, it’s probably Christmas Eve. After all, the older you get, the more you likely realize that the best part of Christmas Present often is enjoying memories of Christmases Past. The Flood’s memories usually come with a soundtrack as well. Merry Christmas, dear friends!Another Holiday Helping?And if you’d like a little more fa-la-la-la-Flood in your festivities, remember the Radio Floodango free music streaming service has this yuletide playlist

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3:29

"Payday"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/20

A few weeks before his death in November 1966, Mississippi John Hurt’s rendition of “Payday” was released as the opening track on his Today album for Vanguard Records.At the time, many fans believed the 74-year-old bluesman wrote the song, despite his introduction in which he characterized it as “an old tune… a ‘bandit tune.’” And we now know that a quarter of a century earlier, folklorist John Lomax recorded a version of “Payday” by lesser-known blues artists Willie Ford and Lucious Curtis in

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12:53

Bahnhof was a Blast!

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/13

We thank everyone who braved the cold last night and came out to pack the house for our show at Huntington’s wonderful Bahnhof WVrsthaus & Biergarten. What a grand evening! Old friends, new friends and a whole bunch of fresh memories.At a ringside table, Pamela Bowen captured a bit of the joy in this video of this trio of tunes from the evening.We are especially happy that her video also recorded some pretty fancy footwork. Our favorite “dancin’ doctors” — Marshall professors Bonnie Lawrence and

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4:26

Still Pilgrims, We Five

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/13

A century ago this year, the fledgling record industry’s first supergroup walked into a New York studio and waxed one of its greatest hit.The first time much of the world ever heard a rocking spiritual called “I’m a Pilgrim,” it was on the Oct. 4, 1924, Paramount Record release by the jazzy Norfolk Jubilee Quartet.Starting with its birth in 1919, the Norfolk Quartet offered a unique sound, characterized by a scat-like rhythmic pattern performed by founder Len Williams, the bass singer, while the

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4:21

How to Warm Up a Cold December Night

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/08

By all rights, this Bob Dylan tune ought to be The Flood’s theme song. The fact is, though, the guys have been doing it only about a dozen years or so, which is … well, “yesterday,” in FloodSpeak, but since then, they have embraced it.And the song has particularly righteous powers when it comes to warming up a room on a cold December night, as illustrated in Pamela Bowen’s video, shot at last week’s rehearsal.By the way, for a deeper dive into this song’s history, you might check out an earlier

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3:47

"Two Nineteen Blues (Rocking Chair)"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/06

Singer/songwriter Bob Gibson was a defining figure in the folk music revival starting in the late 1950s, but a crushing dependence on heroin and other drugs sank his career, his marriage and many of his long-time friendships.Gibson — who wrote songs like “Abilene” and “There’s a Meeting Here Tonight” that were performed by artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary, The Limeliters and Simon and Garfunkel, as well as The Byrds, The Smothers Brothers and others — hit rock bottom in the late ’60s.The Road

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5:44

Taking In Strays

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/12/03

Holidays were hard for Roger Samples in 1975.He was living alone, just him and Josephine the Cat rattling around on Mount Union Road where he was house-sitting for Susan and David Peyton. (As reported earlier, the Peyton family had left town for six months in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Dave was researching Cajun culture for his Alicia Paterson Foundation fellowship project.)Nonetheless, that autumn was a fertile one for Roger and the fledgling Flood. That’s because every few days, Joe Dobbs would

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3:14

"Just a Closer Walk with Thee"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/29

The quintessential moment of a jazz funeral is the playing of “Just a Closer Walk to Thee.” Some say this custom goes all the back to early days of the New Orleans music scene nearly a century and half ago. It’s a lovely story… and, well, untrue.The jazzman most associated with playing this beautiful song — New Orleans’ legendary clarinetist George Lewis — revealed the tune actually has a much more recent history, one in which a barroom jukebox plays a prominent role.“The first time I played it was

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4:20

"One Too Many Mornings"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/22

Johnny Cash had a long-time affinity for the work of — and for his friendship with — Bob Dylan.In his book Cash: The Autobiography, Johnny wrote of being on the road in the early ‘60s. “I had a portable record player that I’d take along on the road, and I’d put on Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan backstage, then go out and do my show, then listen again as soon as I came off.“After a while at that, I wrote Bob a letter telling him how much of a fan I was,” he said. “He wrote back almost immediately, saying

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9:28

Gettin' Juggy Wit It

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/19

Fifteen years ago tonight, The Flood continued its mission to convince the world that jug band music could fit any occasion.This particular occasion — in the ballroom atop the Renaissance Performing Arts Center in the old Huntington High School building in the city’s South Side — was a benefit concert to help out with medical expenses for a family member of long-time Flood buddy Dale Jones.No one knows how successful the band’s hokum music proselytizing was — you can draw your own conclusions by

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6:25

Cruisin' the Calendar: 1961

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/15

The band does a lot of time traveling at its rehearsals. In those two hours each week, the guys might start with a rock classic like “Hey Baby,” as they do in this track from last week’s get-together.Then in the next moment The Flood Time Machine Lab might transport the lads back to, say, the Roarin’ Twenties.There they can sample a song or two of the day, maybe “Dinah” or “Lady Be Good” or “My Blue Heaven.”Then switching gears again, they swoop down into the Thirties or the Forties to toy with

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5:02

"Somebody's Been Using That Thing"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/08

The word hokum originated in vaudeville to mean a risqué performance laced with wordplay, euphemisms and double entendre.When it appeared on the label of a 1928 hit for Vocalion Records by a new group called Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band, the term rapidly entered the jazzy lexicon of The Roarin’ Twenties.When the group moved on to Paramount Records as The Famous Hokum Boys, it quickly picked up imitators at other studios, often using variations on the same word in their own names. Eventually “hokum”

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4:40

Our New A.I. Department

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/03

For such a bunch of old guys, The Flood has always had a rather rad technology division. Back in 2008, for instance, the notion of podcasting was only a few years old when the band started its own online broadcasts. Today, nearly 750 episodes later, the podcast is still going strong, with a new installment each week.That same year, when YouTube was but three years old, The Flood’s first digital video was posted, now having been viewed by nearly 10,000 folks around the world. Since then, with band

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4:18

"Way Downtown"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/11/01

Sam McGee — called by some “the granddad of country guitar pickers” — got his start in April 1926 when he traveled to New York City for his first recording session, backing up the legendary Uncle Dave Macon on eight sides at the Brunswick studios.Thirty-year-old McGee met Macon two years earlier when the banjoist played a show near Sam’s Franklin, Tennessee, home. Sam was a blacksmith in those days, but he had played guitar and banjo for many years.Following the show, McGee invited Macon home and,

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4:14

Callin' Up The Coasters

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/10/27

The Coasters were formed 69 years ago this month, when two members of an L.A.-based R&B group called The Robins came east to join Atlantic Records. The new group was dubbed The Coasters because they crossed the continent to come together.About the same time, songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced “Smokey Joe's Cafe" for The Robins (their sixth for the group). Atlantic liked the tune so much, the company offered Leiber and Stoller an independent production contract to bring The Robins to

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6:06

Josephine Baker Meets Bricktop & 'Dinah'

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/10/25

Josephine Baker was only 20 years old when she recorded the song “Dinah” at her first studio session 98 years ago this fall. That was just a year after the provocative dancer/singer arrived in Paris, immediately setting the town on fire with her risqué shows at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.And a West Virginian was right there to help her light those blazes.Ada “ Bricktop” Smith, a young Alderson, WV, native, was in Paris several years ahead of Baker, entertaining at composer Cole Porter’s famous

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3:00

Remembering Fats Domino

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/10/20

It was seven years ago this Thursday that the great Fats Domino died at age 89.The Family Flood grew up with Fats’ music, so it was a joy at last week’s rehearsal to take a moment — which band manager Pamela Bowen captured in this video — to remember him with a fun ride on one of his finest songs.About the SongAs we reported in an earlier Flood Watch article, Fats wrote “I’m Walkin’” 67 years ago, working with his frequent collaborator Dave Bartholomew. The song became Domino's third release in a

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3:45

"Mama, You Been on My Mind"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2024/10/18

Music’s most famous breakup in the late 20th century was surely the failed love affair of youngsters Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan. Or at least it was the most productive parting on record.Following their split, 20-year-old Dylan wrote some his most plaintive songs of the era. “Don't Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Boots of Spanish Leather,” “Tomorrow is a Long Time” and “One Too Many Mornings, “Ballad in Plain D” and more were all clearly about Suze.One of the lesser known of Bob’s breakup ballads

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