"I Never Cried ('Til My Baby Got on That Train)”

When The Flood wanted a closing track for its second studio album in 2002, the guys turned to a tune that Charlie Bowen had just learned from listening to “Below the Salt,” Keith Newman’s legendary radio show on Ohio University’s public radio station, WOUB-FM.

From Athens, Ohio, for 35 years ending in 2012, Newman broadcast all manner of folk sounds, from roots music, old-time and blues to original songwriters and what he called “techno-Celtic.” And on most of those ear-opening Sunday mornings, Charlie was tuned in from the Bowens’ kitchen in Huntington.

It was on Keith’s show that he first heard a 1975 recording by Roy Book Binder and Fats Kaplin of the tune they called “Never Cried ’Til My Baby Got On the Train.”

Falling in love with the melody and those sassy lyrics, Charlie worked it up and bought it to the band, which had it well in hand by the time of its recording on The Flood’s Plays Up a Storm album in November 2002.

Later, when it came time to write the notes for the new album, the guys credited the song to Roy Book Binder, but they could find no further provenance for the tune.

After all, in 2002 Google was just four years old, and at any rate the World Wide Web was not yet all that worldly nor wide, nowhere near the data monster it is nowadays.

Digging up the Roots

Today, though, nearly a quarter of a century later, the web is an awesome thing and quite the boon to anyone eager to search out the genealogy of the songs the world sings.

It turns out that the tune we’re talking about here can be traced back to a blues singer named Blind Teddy Darby, who wrote and recorded it as "Built Right on the Ground," released from a September 1931 session for Victor Records.

Theodore Roosevelt Darby was born in Henderson, Ky., in 1906, though his family later moved to St. Louis when Teddy was 7. Between 1929 and 1937, Darby recorded 20 sides in Chicago under several names (Blind Teddy Darby, Blind Blues Darby, etc.) for labels such as Paramount, Victor, Bluebird, Vocalion and Decca.

Darby lived until 1975 and was “rediscovered” during the folk revival in the 1960s, when he was able to tell his story to song catchers and documentarians.

Darby’s Back Story

In notes for Darby’s collected sides on Documents records, for instance, Mike Row wrote that at 15 Teddy had his first taste of trouble when he “cut a boy with a razor” and was sent to a correctional institution.

Released after 14 months Teddy found work in a barrel factory until around 1926 when he lost his sight through glaucoma. Later an incident over a woman saw him incarcerated again, this time in the city workhouse where he learned to play guitar from one Jesse Riley.

“I really worked on the guitar,” Darby said. “Not much else a blind man could do then.”

Once released from the workhouse, Darby performed on the streets, at house-parties and at a gambling club. In 1929, a piano-playing friend introduced him to Jesse Johnson who was organizing a session for local talent to record for Paramount. That meeting led to eight years of recording sessions.

Johnson also promoted the 1931 Victor session at which Darby recorded “Built Right on the Ground.”

Slowing Down

Darby’s musical activities slowed down after he received his disablement pension in 1939; possibly recording opportunities were becoming fewer anyway. Finally, it was in the mid-1950s when a musician friend was stabbed to death during a fuss over a packet of cigarettes that Darby soured of the music business and that life.

His later years were quieter, as he spent his time as a deacon in his church. However, in 1964 he did record 15 tunes backed by Big Joe Williams. Sadly, though, that material apparently was never released.

Bit More Floodified Blues?

If you’d like a little something else from the band’s blues cabinet, remember the Blues Channel on the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.

Click here to give it a spin.