The 1937 Flood Watch Podcast

Here’s a tune that has touched the hearts and minds of more than a hundred years’ worth of Flood heroes.

At the very start of the 20th century, it was one of the best-loved numbers in the repertoire o…

Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen could not know it, of course, but 11 years ago this week the pair of them spent their last afternoon with the man who had been their dear friend for nearly a half centur…

Chatter is everywhere when the band gathers each week for rehearsal at the Bowen House. News, gossip, jokes. But the best conversations usually don’t involve words at all.

The Flood Zone — like most t…

In 1938, three years before his death, the legendary Jelly Roll Morton sat down to record a series of Library of Congress interviews with noted folklorist Alan Lomax, who called the results “a virtua…

So much of the band’s repertoire these days is jazzed by Jack Nuckols’ dynamic drumming. Tunes that were thought to be retired from The Flood set lists suddenly are back with a whole new burst of ver…

In our circle of talented friends back in the 1970s, whenever the moment called for a Charlie Poole song, we knew exactly on whom to call.

H. David Holbrook and his powerful, popular Kentucky Foothil…

A standing joke in our world is that the band makes The Big Bucks from grant money scored by the Flood Education Department, mainly when we tell stories and history of the songs during our shows.

That…

Eighty-nine years ago this week, a young North Carolinian walked into a New York recording studio as Fulton Allen and, after recording a few tunes, walked out again as “Blind Boy Fuller.”

On the reco…

It was 19 years ago this week when The Flood met its den mother/soul sister. The irrepressible Rose Marie Riter hired the band to play at her 70th birthday party.

The boys in the band knew they were i…

When Elvis Presley recorded “Just Because” in 1954 in Memphis’s Sun Studio, the 19-year-old rocker was revisiting a saucy novelty tune that was a monster hit five years earlier for a West Virginian k…

Often a song has a special meaning that has absolutely nothing to do with either its lyrics or its melody.

The Flood’s tight connection to W.C. Handy’s 100-year-old “Yellow Dog Blues,” for instance, d…

The Flood is thrilled to be featured in the latest installment of Armstrong Neighborhood Channel’s Press Room Recordings series of award-winning music videos.

Douglas K. Morris and Shane Finster came …

Rehearsals are not parties. They can be fun and satisfying, but the bottom line is that rehearsals are work sessions.

The Flood is always trying to learn new songs, and since that’s where the songs a…

The love affair began on a summer night down by the riverside.

It was June 2002 and The Flood was already there to make a memory, having been invited to perform as the guest artists with the Huntingto…

This raucous David Bromberg composition that The Flood has covered since the song’s release in the early 1970s opens with a stream of similes worthy of any precocious English major:

She's got eye…

Jack Nuckols, our newest band mate, brought us this song, a wonderful reflection on the early history of boating up and down the Ohio River, which flows by the communities in our valley.

Hearing it, i…

In the middle of a busy rehearsal last night, we just had to take a moment out to prepare this little birthday sing-along to our beautiful hilltop homeland. Happy 161st, Mountain Mama! Shoot, gurl, y…

The Flood rolled into Huntington’s West End last Sunday to enjoy a simply perfect June afternoon, performing at a picnic to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the city’s beloved Sacred Heart Catholic …

A signature tune from the late David Peyton — the song he called “Furniture Man” — entered the Floodisphere 45 years ago as a wild and crazy sing-along for the folks who attended the latter years of …

Some songs have very deep roots in the Floodisphere. For instance, the late Joe Dobbs loved this song.

In fact, we can remember Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen jamming on this one with Joe and his brot…