Digital Jam Session
We created a podcast to share occasional tracks from our Wednesday jam sessions.
By subscribing to Jam Logs, Freebies from The Flood, you'll automatically get each new two- to five-minute installment through the iTunes store or any other podcast tool you use. To subscribe, click here.
Or if you don't want to subscribe but still want to hear the jam session tunes, you've 
come to the right page. Just browse below and click the gold arrow key 
beneath any song description to hear it right now.
And by the way, you can download free .mp3 copies of any of these tunes in our last.fm installation.
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18. Fly Me to the Moon. Michelle Walker, takes the Flood in a whole ‘nother direction with the great standard from the 1950s. “Fly to the Moon” is often associated with Frank Sinatra, of 
course, but his version wasn’t recorded until 10 years after Bart Howard wrote the song. Over the years, it’s been recorded by everyone from Nat King Cole, Count Basie and Earl Grant to Connie Francis and Doris Day. More recently it’s had a rebirth in the movies, used in the opening titles of Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, “Wall Street” and in the closing moments of Clint Eastwood’s 2000 film, “Space Cowboys.” Incidentally, the tune was originally entitled, “In Other Words,” but became popularly called “Fly Me to the Moon” because of its first line. It took the publishers a few years to officially change the song’s name.
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17. Soldier' Joy. Young British fiddler Mike Smith and his stepdaughter Sydney have become regulars at the Wednesday night jam sessions, and lately Mike and Joe Dobbs have been working on some nice duets. Here the twin fiddles rock through a 
sweet version of “Soldier’s Joy,” perhaps the best known fiddle tune on either side of the Atlantic. “Soldier’s Joy,” like many fiddle tunes, was popularized by minstrel shows in the 19th Century, but the tune is much older than that and is known by other names. For instance, the Amish in north central Ohio know this tune as “Two Rattle.” Meanwhile, there are various theories about what “Soldier’s Joy” means. Some think tune originated in Ireland as “Soldier’s Hornpipe.” Another story has it that a soldier’s “joy” was his pay, prompting some to call the tune “Pay Day in the Army.” But you’ll also hear that the name was bestowed by wounded soldiers in the American Civil War who nicknamed their morphine “soldier’s joy.”
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16. Buddy Bolden Blues. The story of Charles “Buddy” Bolden — also known as King Bolden — is the story of jazz itself at its very beginnings. A trumpet player in New Orleans in the first few years of the 20th Century, Bolden influenced the first 
generation of jazzmen. We have no recordings of Bolden, but the great Jelly Roll Morton called him “the most powerful trumpet player I’ve ever heard.” This tune was Bolden’s only known piece of original music, which he called “Funky Butt.” Jelly Roll later recorded it with the opening line, “I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say,” and it’s come down to us as “Buddy Bolden Blues.” Jelly Roll was the only person recording the tune who’d actually heard Buddy play it. The Flood learned its version of the song from a 1961 Folkways recording by bluesmen Rolf Cahn and Eric von Schmidt.
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15. Georgie Buck. The late Aunt Jennie Wilson was born in 1900 in Logan County, West Virginia. She learned tunes from 
family members and other musicians in her coalfield community and was among the first women in her region to play the banjo. Our Dave Peyton got to know Jennie in the 1960s and learned a number of songs from her, many of which he has taught the Flood. Here Dave leads the boys in a rendition of Jennie's old play-party tune, "Georgie Buck." Incidentally, the Carolina Chocolate Drops do an interesting, different version of this same old string band number.
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14. Dead Cat on the Line. Many blues singers have recorded this cool old song over the years, but we took our inspiration 
from the April 1934 recording by our heroes Tampa Red and Georgia Tom. Incidentally, while the Flood always does feline noises in this number, the "dead cat" in this title may actually be talking about fishing. Words guru William Safire wrote in no less an authority than The New York Times in 1998 that the phase "dead cat on the line" appears to refer to a dead catfish on a trotline, evidence that a lazy fisherman has not been checking his poles. In other words, something's fishy...
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13. Wade in the Water. This old spiritual was first published in 1901 in “New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers” by John Wesley Work II and his brother, Frederick J. Work. “Wade in the Water” was a popular instrumental hit in 1966 for the Ramsey Lewis Trio, which prompted further instrumental recordings. But our favorite version was the late, great Odetta in 1954.
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12. Blue Moon. We started doing this old standard soon after Michelle Walker, the Chick Singer, made her Flood debut a few years back. There’s something so relaxing about this Rodgers and Hart melody and lyric. The first commercial release of “Blue Moon” was by Connee Boswell in 1935, but of course, since then it’s been recorded by everyone from Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Dylan and the Cowboy Junkies.
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11. Down in the Flood. This old Bob Dylan tune seems more or less MADE for The Flood. We’ve loved every version we’ve ever heard, from Bobby’s original to Flatt & Scruggs (Oh Mama!)…
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10. Backwater Blues. Jacob Scarr is a talented young guitar player who’s been sitting in with The Flood for a year or so now, and we’ve loved watching him get just better and better week after week. Jacob is featured on this little blues we use as a warm-up tune. Oh, while you’re listening, don’t miss Michelle Walker’s neat supporting vocals on this track. Yes, the Chick Singer’s working her own arrangement!
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9. Good As I Been To You. This old tune dates back to the fall of 1927 when a bluesman called Blind Blake recorded it in Chicago. Nobody know much about Blake -- even where he was born (they think it was Florida) or when he died (probably in the early '30s) -- but he left us about 80 tracks recorded for the old Paramount label. Bob Dylan recorded this song in 1992 as "You're Gonna Quit Me." The Flood often uses it for a warm-up tune, giving everybody a couple of choruses.
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8. One-Eyed Sam. We’ve just started to work on this tune, which we’re learning from a 1938 recording by a little-known but wonderful Kentucky string band called Eldon Baker And His Brown County Revelers. Eldon and his brother, Floyd, led the group, joined by Charlie Linville on fiddle and Harry Baker on guitar. “One-Eyed Sam” was one of the jazzy little tunes the band recorded in Chicago for Columbia.
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7. France Blues. This old tune dates back at least to an April 1927 recording called “Hey Lawdy Mama/France Blues” by a group called “Sonny Boy & His Pals.” It was later reissued under the names “Papa Harvey Hull and Long Cleeve Reed” — they might have been the same group. Anyway, we learned it in the 1960s from the only recording from the great Even Dozen Jug Band. We recorded this one on Christmas Eve 2008.
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6. McLeod' Reel. Dr. Wendell Dobbs — a professor at Marshall University, a section leader of the Huntington Symphony Orchestra — is an old friend. In fact, his Irish band, Blackbirds and Thrushes, has performed in the same programs with The Flood often over the years. One night not long ago, Wendell dropped by with his flute to jam with us, and here Joe and Wendell team up on a great old fiddle tune.
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5. Basin Street Blues. Michelle Walker leads the band in her version of the great Spencer Williams tune from the 1920s. Oh, and don’t miss Br’er Dave Peyton’s big blue kazoo surprise at the end…
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4. The New Wreck of the Old 97. The guys are playing around with an old parody Charlie learned from the recordings of the late, great Utah Phillips, stopping for solos by Joe, Dave and Doug.
3. Up a Lazy River. It’s late summer, 2008, and The Chick Singer, Michelle Walker, has dropped in from Cross Lanes. After an evening of tunes, the boys fall into “Up a Lazy River,” with Michelle finding an interesting new vocal line against Charlie’s lead. Solos are shared by Doug, Joe, Bub and Jacob.
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2. 4th Street Mess Around. The boys dust off an old Memphis Jug Band tune they’ve not tasted for a while. After a busy summer, it is the first time everyone is back together again — Sam and Dave, Bub and Joe, Doug and Charlie — and it’s fun to poke around in the nooks and crannies of this old song they’ve not played in more than a year.
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1. St. Louis Blues. It was a warm June evening in 2008, late in the jam session. Doug and Charlie started picking a blues and Mickey Dee and Bub hopped right in. Before it was over, Joe had joined before they handed it off to Jacob. And somewhere along the line, the guys determined that they must be playing “St. Louis Blues,” the old W.C. Handy piece.