The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast

Even a rainy winter’s night can be fun at one of Huntington’s hottest venues, the remarkable Bahnhof WVrsthaus & Biergarten on 7th Avenue.

The band hit the Bahnhof stage early Thursday evening, a doze…

What an amazing year 1966 was in music. Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde hit the racks. So did The Beatles’ Revolver, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, The Stones’ Aftermath and so many more.

Into this stellar crow…

At a coffeehouse in Ashland, Ky., 50 years ago this week, Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen continued their new mission to spread the good news about the work of young singer-songwriter John Prime.

As rep…

If your mom (or your grandma or maybe great-grandmother) was a Bobby-soxer in the 1940s, she probably danced to this tune.

Sociologists call the bunch born in the 1930s “The Silent Generation” — a te…

For the past month, the world has been fascinated by a new movie about a 20-year-old with a head full of ideas rolling from the North Country into New York City in 1961 and changing music forever.

Th…

All kinds of stories are told at the weekly rehearsals. Some are shared for laughs. Others are merely melodies and improvisations. Some come with pictures. And some — like this one — are the tales th…

In the early 2000s, Joe Dobbs expanded his operations at his Fret ‘n Fiddle’s music store in downtown St. Albans to include a recording studio that he and his young staff dubbed “The Bunker.”

The idea…

Often the first notes of the evening set the pace, the mood and the tone for the entire rehearsal.

As you’ll hear on this track, Danny Cox walked into last week’s session ready to set the Floodometer…

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 …

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, t…

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…

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 …

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 a…

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 spiritu…

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, bu…

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 …

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 reporte…

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 ha…

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 porta…

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 …