The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast

It had been an unproductive day for songwriters Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz, and this pair was unaccustomed to dry spells. After all, together and individually, Overstreet and Schlitz had written…

For the first time in years, The Flood has started working on original compositions.

Currently, for instance, we’re studying with bandmate Vanessa Coffman to craft accompaniments for her original fol…

One of Ray Charles’s first hits was “Mess Around,” released on Atlantic Records back in 1953, but actually in this case, Brother Ray was a little late to the party.

Many of the ideas for that song can…

About a year after she wrote this moving Appalachian song in 1965, folk legend Jean Ritchie came back to Kentucky from her New York home to perform it in a solo concert at Ashland Community College i…

More than a hundred years ago, musicologist John Lomax recorded an African American woman named "Dink" singing a song as she washed her man's clothes in a Texas work camp on the banks of the Brazos R…

Nowadays “The Nearness of You” often conjures a mental image of 21st century song stylist Norah Jones. And, indeed, Jones did release a gorgeous rendition of the song in 2001, leading some to think t…

One of the wonderful things about the folk tradition in music is that you learn so much from people you know, sometimes from relatives, but more often from good friends.

Terry Goller, a remarkable si…

What a happy coincidence it was that our saxophonist Veezy Coffman brought her shiny, silver soprano to the rehearsal as we were just starting to work out our arrangement of “Moondance.”

It was unbek…

Regular readers/listeners love all those scintillating sax solos by Vanessa Coffman, and with good reason! This talented 20-year-old started in January 2020 rocking our repertoire on her tenor, Blue,…

Controversy surrounds the question of who actually wrote the 1930 standard “On the Sunny Side of Street.”

If you rely only on what is printed on the sheet music, you see Jimmy McHugh listed as the com…

There’s nothing new and special about the melody to the 1930 jazz standard “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.” In fact, it’s a bit of a ripoff, because Sam Stept’s chords are virtually the sa…

The late Aunt Jennie Wilson, who was born in 1900 in Logan County, WV, learned tunes from family members and other musicians in her coalfield community and was among the first women in her region to …

The jazz standard “Makin’ Whoopee” — introduced in a 1928 stage musical with a performance by legendary song-and-dance man Eddie Cantor — is built around the sassiest words ever penned by one of the …

Many of us grew up listening to The Coasters, the iconic 1950s band that bridged the gap between doo-wop and R&B, that brought humor and sass to the birth of rock ’n’ roll. Remember “Yakety Yak” and …

“Memphis in June” was written by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster for the 1945 George Raft movie “Johnny Angel.” Carmichael himself, playing a character named "Celestial O'Brien,” performed …

Many “river” songs try to tap into the romance of riverboats, but few can claim to be born on the river and be written by an actual steamboater.

New Orleans clarinetist Sidney Arodin got his start in…

One of America’s greatest train song was first recorded by a cowboy band, a bunch of real Oklahoma wranglers who were not only good musicians, but also, as one of their earliest backers said, could …

Gotta get my old tuxedo pressed, gotta sew a button on my vest,'cause tonight I've gotta look my best, Lulu's back in town!

Okay, you probably never heard of a songwriter named Harry Warren. But we be…

Born in New York City in the waning years of the 19th century, Harry Akst started out as a vaudeville pianist, backing Nora Bayes as she belted out tunes like “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”

In 1916 Harry e…

In the genesis of American popular music, few moments are as important as one that occurred exactly 100 years ago tonight.

Louis Armstrong was just 20 years old — nervous and apprehensive — when he st…