The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast

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…

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 grou…

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 on…

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 Dav…

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 …

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,…

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 manage…

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 thei…

Before Floodster Emerita Vanessa Coffman left the band, she taught the guys her mom’s favorite tune, a 1948 jazz standard.

Everyone fully expected when the talented young saxophonist drifted away last…

Fifteen years ago this week, The Flood was back at a favorite venue — Huntington’s Harris Riverfront Park — to celebrate the visit by a beautiful riverboat, the Belle of Cincinnati, and to entertain …

In the mid-1960s, the young British songwriter Barry Gibb was in New York City for the first time when he was visited at the Waldorf Astoria by one of his musical heroes: soul/R&B superstar Otis Redd…

A Flood Watch reader last week wrote, “Hey, recently y’all did a new song about the Ohio River, but I can’t remember what it was called. Can you help me?”

Charlie Bowen gave her directions to last sum…

Earning their chops in medicine shows and with minstrel troupes in the late 1890s, brothers Frank and Bert Leighton wrote and/or arranged many ragtime pieces for use in vaudeville.

Among their work wa…

A surprise visit from Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin turned this week’s rehearsal into a happy reunion.

Paul became active with the band nearly a decade ago. He was fundamental in recording and engine…

A decade after what fans feared would be the last flight of The Eagles — SoCal’s ultimate 1970s soft rockers — band mates Timothy Schmit and Don Felder teamed up with friends to try to create a new b…

It all began toward the end of a rollicking rehearsal when between songs the guys started talking about what they planned to do in the week ahead.

Danny mentioned that lately he had been getting out …

For dozens of years, a favorite annual event in the Floodisphere has been playing each September at the Fraley Festival at Carter Caves State Park in Olive Hill, Ky.

Floodster Emeritus Doug Chaffin — …

The first time Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers walked into a recording studio in New York City, they blew the doors off the place.

It was July 27, 1925, and the first record by the three…

The Roarin’ Twenties were in full swing and the stock market was reaching new record highs a hundred years ago when vaudevillian Jimmy Cox wrote his cautionary tale about the fickleness of fortune an…

Having known each other since high school, Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox have bonds and shared musical instincts that bring lots of riches to our room.

Whenever Randy and Dan put a song on the table — …