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 
before 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.
NOTE: The "gold arrow" links below use Flash software technology, which should work with most computers and browsers configurations. However, if you don't hear the audio, you might try this link to reach the podcast files directly. Just click titles on specific tunes on the resulting pages.
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Little Darlin' Pal of Mine. Dave, Joe and Charlie 
met singer-guitarist Bill Hoke in the mid-1970s, soon after he finished a six-year stint in the Navy, and Bill quickly became a regular in their circle of friends. He was one of the founders of a great local band called The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers, but Bill also had time play in The Flood too in its first six or seven years. Bill moved away in the early '80s and we don't get to see him much any more, but recently on a drive home to Dayton, Ohio, he stopped to take in a Wednesday night jam session. Here Bill Hoke leads the band on a spirited version of a Carter Family song.
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You Can't Get That Stuff No More. He was born in 
1904 in Smithville, Georgia, and was given what was definitely 
NOT a blues name: Hudson Woodbridge. Well, the world wouldn't know him by that handle -- it was as Tampa Red that he became one of the most accomplished and influential musicians of his day. His big break came in 1928 when he was hired to accompany blues legend Ma Rainey, and their subsequent recordings would popularize the silly, bawdy sound we lovingly know as "hokum music." Here Dave Peyton leads us one of our favorite Tampa Red hokum songs … genetically altered, of course, to incorporate a few West Virginia references.
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Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore. Our weekly jam sessions are not just rehearsals. Sometimes they're also trips down the foggy ruins of time. 
Occasionally, someone will ask for a tune we haven't done in years and it's fun to find out if we still remember how it goes. Here's a case in point. John Prine write "Your Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore" during the Vietnam War years, and that's when Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen first started doing it. You know, it's sad that the funny little tune is still relevant… how many wars later?
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Margaret's Waltz. The Margaret of "Margaret's Waltz" was Margaret Grant, well known in country dance circles 
in the south west of England in the 1950s. Pat Shaw wrote this beautiful piece in her honor in the early 1960s, and the tune was beautifully recorded by the celtic greats, The Boys of the Lough. But in our part of the world, this tune is famously associated with fiddle legend J.P. Fraley, a dear old friend of The Flood. Here, Joe Dobbs models his rendition of this great waltz on the playing of J.P. Fraley.
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Tear It Down (Foldin' Bed). A good case can be made that jugband music was actually born down river from us 
in the city of Louisville, Ky. I suppose it can't be proved, but what we do know for a fact is that a great number of jugbands flourished in Louisville in the '20s and '30s, and there was none better than the wonderful Whistler's Jug Band headed by guitarist Buford Threlkeld. Whistler was the first group in the nation to record jugband music, starting in 1924. Now, we know that over the years, a lot of bands did this tune, "Tear It Down," as known as "Foldin' Bed," but we suspect Whistler was the first. Here's The Flood's version, from a recent jam session.
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Sittin' on Top of the World. Some Bluegrass pickers who these days do the standard "Sittin' on Top of the World" might be astounded to find out where their tune came from. It was actually written and recorded in the early 1930s by 
some Flood heroes: the great country blues band, The Mississippi Sheiks. And over the years, versions of this song have been done by everyone from Ray Charles to Bill Monroe, from the Grateful Dead to Willie Nelson. Oh, and here's a curious bit of trivia. A great verse in this song goes, "If you don't like my peaches, don't shake my tree." Well, it turns out that the "peaches" verse has a long history in popular music. A variation of the line even appeared nearly a hundred years ago in a chorus of a little-known Irving Berlin song, as "If you don't want my peaches / You'd better stop shaking my tree." Irving, you old dog, you!
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Jesus, Will You Come By Here. Sometimes at The Flood's jam sessions, impromptu tributes to our heroes come 
about when we land on tunes we don't usually plays. Here's a case in point. Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins recorded "Jesus, Will Come By Here" back in 1952, but the song went largely unnoticed for 20 years. Then in 1972, the Cicely Tyson/Paul Winfield movie, "Sounder," used it in the soundtrack, calling it "Needed Time," and that's the first we heard it. This jam session version is a lot more raucous than Lightnin's original, but it does capture the joy of Wednesday nights with the Family Flood.
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Jug Band Music. We learned this tune from a 1960s recording by our heroes, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. And THEY 
learned it from a 1934 recording by everybody's heroes, the Memphis Jug Band headed up by the legendary Will Shade. Kweskin called the tune "Jug Band Music," but it was known as "Jug Band Quartette" on the original 1930s recording. Not unlike The Flood itself, the Memphis Jug Band didn't like to easily categorize its music, recording a wild mixture of ballads, dance tunes, knock-about novelty numbers, blues and even their own special take on pop tunes of the day.
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Way Downtown. Our good buddy Chuck Romine 
played tenor banjo with The Flood for six glorious years, before stepping down to spend more time traveling and visiting with his family. But hey, as we often say, The Flood is easier to get into than it is to get out of, and once a Floodster, always a Floodster. Chuck still sits in with us occasionally at gigs and other gatherings, and recently, ol' Dr. Jazz surprised us by dropping by this Wednesday night jam session.
By the way, we also created a video last year with a live performance of this tune in concert in Kentucky in 2002, featuring Chuck and the guys. Click here to view it.
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Walkin' After Midnight. We always associate "Walkin' After Midnight" with the late, great Patsy Cline, but it wasn't originally intended for her, and she almost didn't record it 
at all. The story goes that Alan Block and Don Hecht wrote the song specifically for pop vocalist Kay Starr but, for some reason, her recording company didn't want her to record it, so the tune sat unused. Later on, Don Hecht thought up and coming Patsy Cline's voice was perfect for the song, but Patsy didn't like it, thinking it was too "pop" for her decidedly country sound. In 1957, when Patsy auditioned for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts program, she was supposed to sing her song, "A Poor Man's Roses," but someone on the show insisted on "Walkin' After Midnight" instead. Patsy then won the competition with the song, and the rest, as they say, is history. This is our Michelle Walker's version of this 50-year-old classic.
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Suffer to Sing the Blues. Some of us in The Flood have been loving the music of David Bromberg for nearly 40 years now. And this old tune, dusted off at a recent jam session, comes from Bromberg's debut album back in 1971. It's a song that reminds us that, dang, boy, you just got to suffer if you're going to sing the blues.
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St. Anne's Reel. Our fiddler, Joe Dobbs, has been playing this great old tune for years, but there's a lot of confusion about its origins, because these days, it's played from 
Scotland and Ireland to New England and other spots all around the world. It's been claimed as a Shetland tune, an Irish reel, a contra-dance number and an American old-time standard. But The Flood is pretty much convinced that "St. Anne's Reel" comes to us from the French-Canadian tradition. It appears the tune was first made popular in the early 1930s through a recording of Québec fiddler Joseph Allard and later spread to English Canada and the Eastern U.S. Adding credence to the theory is that Saint Anne, of course, is traditionally a cultural and religious icon in Québec. Enjoy!
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Summertime from "Porgy and Bess" is one of the most 
performed songs of the modern era. Any respectable music collection has dozens of versions of the Gershwin classic, from Ella Fitzgerald's smoky take on the tune to Janis Joplin's raw, electric rendering. The Flood's been doing the song for years -- we even put it on a CD back in 2002. But "Summertime" changed for us when Michelle came along to sing the lead and let us play with some harmonies. Here's Michelle's "Summertime" from a recent Wednesday evening.
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Oor Hamlet. Our buddy Mike Smith simply brought 
down the house one Wednesday night recently when he introduced us to this wonderful bit of reduced Shakespeare. Here's his four-minute a cappella recap of all five acts of "Hamlet." Mike's tune comes from the madly unbuttoned mind of Scottish folksinger Adam McNaughtan.
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Somebody Stole My Gal. Daniel Trout is a fine 
young percussionist who occasionally -- way too occasionally -- drives down fromAthens, Ohio, to sit in with us. The other night, Daniel showed up with a Cuban box drum called a cajón and joined us for the entire evening. Take a listen to his solo on this great old 1920s jazz standard.
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Peggy Day. Bob Dylan wrote and released this tune more than 40 years ago on the great "Nashville Skyline" album and we're surprised that more performers haven't recorded it over the years. "Peggy Day" is one of The Flood's favorite warm-up tunes.
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Please Don't Bury Me. Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen started doing this old John Prine song back before The 
Flood was even a glint in our eyes. In fact, "Please Don't Bury Me" was one of the crazy tunes they brought along when Rog Samplesand Joe Dobbs, Stewart Schneider and Bill Hoke joined them to start The Flood back in the mid-70s. And Dave and Charlie still dust this old tune off from time to time, as they did at this recent Wednesday night jam session.
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Somebody's Been Using That Thing. If there's such a thing as a "standard" in jug band music, this tune is 
certainly one of them. Our heroes, the Hokum Boys, recorded it back in 1930, but the song was done by lots of folks, even country blues performers in the '30s and '40s, like Homer and Walter Callahan and Milton Browne and his Musical Brownies. Well, we've always loved the song, but The Flood didn't get around to doing it until just recently, when we heard a version earlier this year by our old buddy, Ed Light, and his new band with a great name: It's Ed Light and The All New Genetically Altered Jug Band. Too cool, Ed! So, here's the Flood's take on "Somebody's Been Using That Thing."
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Whisky Before Breakfast -- not an especially good idea, but one fine fiddle tune -- has been on the Flood's menu for more than three decades, ever 
since fiddlin' Joe Dobbs brought to us back in the late '70s. It's been a Flood standard ever since. Lately, our favorite new Flood friend, Mike Smith, has been joining in on the tune, and suddenly "Whisky" has a new life as a twin fiddle piece. Check out this version from Joe and Mike from a jam session a week or so ago.
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Sunny Side of the Street. Michelle Walker -- we 
affectionately call her The Chick Singer -- first sang on stage with The Flood about five years ago at West Virginia's Snowshoe Mountain Resort, and this wonderful old 1930s standard was her debut number. Michelle's still singing with us regularly and we're still doing this great tune. In fact, this version was recorded at a recent jam session.
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Come Back to Us, Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard. The Flood fellas have been fans of John Prine for nearly 40 years. In fact, Prine's debut album came out just about 
the time The Flood was stumbling into existence back in the hippy-dippy days of the early 1970s, so it was only natural that John Prine songs have been on our set lists since the very beginning. Dave Peyton, our Mount Union Road crooner, took this tune as his own as soon as it came out, and all these years later, it's still a regular at our weekly jam sessions. Now, as often with the informal tunes on these podcasts, the recording quality isn't the best, but it does capture the spirit of the evening.
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The Farmer's Servant. Okay, most of the noise made at The Flood's weekly jam session is made by The Flood itself. 
But occasionally, the guys sit back and listen to somebody else's song. These days a much welcomed addition to the weekly get-togethers is Mike Smith, who sits in to play fiddle and sometimes gives us a tune from his native England. On this track, he brought down the house with this old English drinking song that was also recorded by the great Martin Carthy in the mid 1960s.
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If You Lose Your Money. Here's a track that perfectly captures the mood of our weekly jam sessions. The 
other night, we'd just launched into this great old Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee song when our man Sam St. Clair came in the back door. We tell him, Sam, we'll keep the song going until you can get in on it. In the background, you can hear Brother Sam unpacking his harmonicas and in a minute he's taking the first of what will be three choruses before the tune is done.
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Ain't No Free. Sam St. Clair brought us this crowd pleaser a few years ago and we almost never miss an opportunity 
to slip it into the set list when we're on stage, though this version was recorded at a recent Wednesday night jam session. "Ain't No Free" comes to us from the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. NRBQ is one of America's great unknown bands -- and it's even older than the Flood, tracing back to 1967.
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The Dutchman. Back in the early 1980s, when he was still playing regularly with the band he helped start, Rog 
Samples brought this great Michael Smith tune to The Flood after learning it from a Steve Goodman album. Well, now, of course, Rog has been away from The Flood for more than 25 years and the song was forgotten for a while, tucked away in the band's foggy long-term memory. But recently the guys have dusted it off again, and it often gets trotted out at the end of a long evening's jam session. So, this is The Flood 3.0's version of "The Dutchman," with solos by Doug Chaffin, Sam St. Clair and Joe Dobbs. Dave Ball (Bub) is on bass here. Alas, Brother Peyton wasn't at this session, so we didn't get his Autoharp on this track.
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Billy in the Low Ground. Our fiddler, Joe Dobbs, says his grandfather used to fiddle this tune. Not 
surprising. "Billy in the Low Ground" is an old one. In fact, it's believed to have begun life among the bagpipers of Highland Scotland. As an American fiddle tune, it's particularly associated with southern Virginia and first appeared in print in a book of Virginia reels published more than 20 years before the Civil War. The tune's had many names. Our favorite? Well, that's got to be: "Fiddler's Drunk and the Fun's All Over."
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Hoochie Coochie Man/7th Son. Jacob Scarr, the newest — and youngest ever — member of The Flood, was getting ready to leave the jam session the other night when the guys said, “Aw, kid, do one more!” This track, 
with Jacob’s guitar solos, was the result. It’s The Flood’s tribute to bluesmen Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. “Hoochie-Coochie Man” was written by Dixon and recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954, and most of our rendition is that tune. But we also incorporate a little shout-out to another favorite Willie Dixon composition, “Seventh Son.”
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Fly Me to the Moon. Michelle Walker, takes the Flood in a whole ‘nother direction with the great standard from the 1950s. “Fly Me 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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.
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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.