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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

4:04

First Visual Offering of Spring '26

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/03/28

Here’s a little festive Floodery to help you celebrate this first bright, sunny Saturday of Spring 2026. Pamela Bowen recorded these four minutes at this week’s rehearsal at the Bowen House with the band enjoying its newest favorite Tom Waits song. Waits wrote “Come On Up to the House” back in 1999 but, as reported here earlier, The Flood is late to the party on that one. We never heard the song until late last year when it was featured in the closing credits of the latest “Knives Out” movie, Wake

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5:01

"The Answer Is You"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/03/27

Most love songs are about young love, and of course that is special, but really it’s nothing compared to love that has aged like fine wine. Here’s a song to all those champion life-long lovers out there.About the SongCharlie Bowen wrote “The Answer Is You” while reflecting on the decades that he and Pamela have been “in each other’s care,” the lyrics say. Beyond that, the song also was inspired by all those couples who have passed in and out of the Bowen House over the years, scores of folks who are

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4:05

An Artifact from The Flood's Founding

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/03/20

This tune — “July, You’re a Woman” — entered the Floodisphere in the first hours of The 1937 Flood’s half-century origin story.As reported earlier, this lovely John Stewart composition is one of the songs that Charlie Bowen brought to his very first jam session with the late David Peyton at the 1973 New Year’s Eve where The Flood was born.For that first year, the song limped along as just a duet by Dave and Charlie. It started coming into its own, though, as the Family Flood began to expand. First,

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4:02

The Folk Process

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/03/13

As we were packing up following our most recent gig at Bahnhof last month, an old friend stepped up with a question.“Say,” he said, “where’d’ya get that melody for ‘Pallet on the Floor’? I’ve been hearing that song for years, but I never heard it played the way you did it tonight. D’y’all write that?”“Well,” we said, thinking fast, “yes! Yes, we did! Do you want to buy it? You know, everything we’re wearin’ is for sale!”He took a step or two back. (We get that a lot.) Seriously, though. Did we come

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6:23

Fruit of Mary's Curiosity

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/03/06

Here’s a song that we likely wouldn’t even know about were it not for the persistence and curiosity of a researcher who was far from an ordinary young woman of her time. Born in 1892 in Paducah, Ky., into the family of a prominent U.S. congressman, Mary Guthrie Wheeler was destined from the start for adventure.Rather than settling into a quiet, conventional life, she embraced the extraordinary, serving, for instance, as an American Red Cross nurse in France during World War I and earning a Medal of

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5:03

To the Freedom Line

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/02/27

We love how this song, which Randy Hamilton brought the band nearly a decade ago now, continues to boldly represent a new direction in Appalachian music.Perspective, Then….For decades, bluegrass music played it safe when singing about the American Civil War. It generally stuck to well-worn tales of shared heartbreak, ruined farms and missing home, while conveniently ignoring the brutal realities of slavery. During the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, the music even took a more startling

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5:00

"Come On Up to the House"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/02/20

When this Tom Waits song turned up during the closing credits of the latest “Knives Out” movie, Wake Up Dead Man, we heard shouts from all around the Floodisphere: “Whoa! What a great tune that would be for The Flood!”We agree. We only wish we’d thought of it earlier. After all, “Come On Up to the House” has been around for more than a quarter of a century, appearing as the closing track on Waits’ 1999 Grammy-winning Mule Variations album. Oh, but how our late co-founder Dave Peyton would have loved

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3:14

"Since I Fell for You"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/02/17

We’re setting the time machine back 20 years to a snowy Saturday night in Charleston.The Flood was on stage at the West Virginia Cultural Center for a FOOTMAD (“Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance”) concert, sharing the bill with another great band, Stewed Mulligan.As reported here earlier, it had been a fun evening of jug band songs and general silliness, blues and fiddle tunes and old-time string band music, so when Michelle Hoge started a classic 1940s jazz standard, a hush fell over the

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3:41

The One About That Spooky Little Girl

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/02/13

Our Randy Hamilton was born to sing songs like this. He and Danny Cox brought us “Spooky” last summer and we’ve been loving it ever since. Especially when we added Sam St. Clair’s funky harmonica and Jack Nuckols’ tasty percussion.About the SongAs reported here earlier, while The Classics IV made the lyrics famous with a chart-topper in the fall of 1967, the story of “Spooky” began several years earlier in an Atlanta club. Following a show sometimes in 1965, saxophonist Mike Sharpe (Shapiro) and his

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4:59

Joy Ride

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/02/06

The fun of playing some songs is that we just never know what we’re going to hear. This George Gershwin piece has been like that ever since Danny Cox brought us better chords for it a year or so ago. Now the song is like a shiny little red convertible parked in the garage just waiting for the next sunny day. You and your buddies pile in, not knowing where you’re going, just enjoying the company and the sights and the sounds of each other’s laughter. Hop in! We’re going for a joy ride!About the

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4:29

Heart-to-Heart Connections

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/01/30

Some songs just seem to go right to the heart of what connects us all, especially when the subject is hard times.This song from a recent Flood rehearsal is often considered a classic example of the old notion of singing the blues to get rid of the blues. Historically the tune also represented liminal moments for two distinctively different musical artists.About the SongAs noted in an earlier Flood Watch article, Ray Charles wrote and recorded “Hard Times (Who Knows Better Than I?)” in the mid-1950s

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4:37

The Night's Sweetest Spot

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/01/23

Sometimes the chemistry’s right, the stars align — however you want to say it — and the best song of the night is one you didn’t even plan to play.At a recent rehearsal, for instance, the band came in with a number of tunes to focus on. Among them were new songs the guys were just starting to work on. Others were old familiar numbers that they were polishing up to include in the next recording session for the new album.Progress was made in the first hour or so on each of these fronts. Then between

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3:28

"Pecan Pie & Sassafras Tea"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/01/16

Redbud trees and mockingbirds, honeysuckle and sassafras. For many a West Virginian, these are emblems of home.And pecan pie. You can’t forget pecan pie. But you gotta be careful how you say it. How you pronounce those words — PEE-con puh-aye, y’un’stan’ — tells us a lot. If you say, puhCAN … well, yeah, we’ll still know what you’re talking about, but we’ll also know you’re not one of us.How the Song Came to BeSuch Appalachian icons and shibboleths were much on Charlie Bowen’s mind as he wrote this

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5:44

Positively Percolating

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/01/09

Our guitarist Danny Cox paints pictures with his sound. He has a positively uncanny capacity for discovering ways to bring out the colors and textures in all kinds of melodies and to plant stories in the minds of everyone who hears.Just listen to his treatment of this rich old Sonny Burke composition, finding all kinds of new magic and nuance in this poignant melody.About the SongAs reported earlier, “Black Coffee,” written in 1948, spent the first decade of its life as a darling of vocalists

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2:36

'It's a Sin to Tell a Lie'

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2026/01/02

By the end of his life, Billy Mayhew might well have wished he’d never written that damned song.Oh, it was a hit, all right — the only one the old Baltimore vaudeville piano man ever wrote — introduced to the world by 1930s radio superstar Kate Smith and later jazzed up by the great Fats Waller who got everyone humming the thing.Still, within months of the publication of “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” Billy and his wife and co-author Margaret Konig Mayhew were dragged into court with a demand that they

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3:04

Merry Christmas with a New Winter Anthem

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/12/25

Wrapping up a recent Christmas party at which we had a houseful of friends and neighbors (including our buddy Jim Rumbaugh sitting in as a guest artist), The Flood unwrapped its new anthem to winter. It is this mashup of “Moscow Nights” and “Greensleeves.” Today we make this performance our gift to you. Merry Christmas from the Floodisphere!The SongsLet’s talk about the bits and pieces that make up this jolly seasonal offering.“Moscow Nights”As reported earlier, “Moscow Nights” was composed in 1955

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3:00

'Come Back to Us, Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard'

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/12/23

It was 16 years ago tonight at the Christmas Eve-eve-eve party in the Bowen House that the late Dave Peyton gifted us with a classic rendition of his all-time favorite John Prine tune. And fortunately, Pamela Bowen had her camera running to preserve the video above.“Come Back to Us, Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard” was introduced on Prine’s 1975 Common Sense album, but the song didn’t really resonate with Br’er Dave until he heard it again about a dozen years later as the opening track on the

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6:26

Jolly Ol' Jim's Got His Yule Log Burnin'

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/12/19

Christmas is usually a pretty raucous time in our band room, with old friends coming back around and new friends ... well, new folks just starting to figure us out. Yes, indeed, we do tend to take those tidings of comfort and joy at their word.And our holiday celebration is especially memorable if we can get that jolly ol’ Jim Rumbaugh back into the room, as we did at a recent festive gathering at the Bowen House. To make the season bright, we always try to get Jim doing his bluesy Christmas

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3:54

"For Baby (For Bobbie)"

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/12/12

The story goes that folkie John Denver was just 22 years old when he played at Arizona’s Lumber Mill Club in Scottsdale and met a girl named Bobbie Wargo.The two had much in common. Both grew up in military families. Both were musicians and aspiring songwriters. Both were looking for love.And love was what they found as they played together at her parents’ piano. It was for her that John wrote one of his first songs. And “For Bobbie” was to be the first original tune that Denver ever recorded.

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4:39

We Never Wanna Call It a Night

The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast ·

2025/12/05

At a good rehearsal — and, heck, that’s just about every rehearsal nowadays — none of us really wants it to end. Oh, sure, we get tired — two hours of hard picking take a toll — but as Gladys Knight used to say, none of us wants to be the first to say goodbye.In fact, as you hear at the conclusion of this week’s podcast, which features the final tune of a recent rehearsal, we often even keep extending the ending, jockeying to be the one to play the last note.The moment is always really fun if that

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