Digital Jam Session
Each week The Flood gives away a free tune that can be heard online without special software or magic decoder ring. Listening is easy: just scroll this page, and click the gold arrow key 
before any song description to hear it right now.
Recorded at the weekly Wednesday night jam sessions, the tracks are far from "studio quality." On the contrary, they are in the finest warts-and-all tradition of "field recordings," so they have what one listener called a decided "back porch sound."
That means that in addition to the occasional flubs and miscues in the performances (the guys meticulously craft and insert these misfires only for your amusement, you understand), you often hear in the background people chatting, laughing, whispering, rolling dice, shuffling cards, performing the Heimlich Maneuver… Because of the nature of the beast, there are times, of course, when we wish the microphone had been positioned differently or the guys had given a little more thought to a bit of harmony, etc., but despite such glitches, the tunes do capture the joy of jams and we hope you like being part of it.
(Incidentally, each free tune is also turned into the Flood's weekly podcast, Jam Logs, so if you a pod person and would rather have the week's new song delivered directly to you, just subscribe to the podcast. For all the details on that, click here.)
NOTE: The "gold arrow" links below that you click to hear the audio 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.
Tom Norman Finally Finds The Flood. Tom 
Norman has been playing in rock 'n' roll bands around here for decades, occasionally dipping into rockabilly. For instance, back in the '90s, he was on Joe Dobbs's old "Music from the Mountains" radio show on West Virginia Public Radio show. Well, Tom finally made it to a Flood jam session and before the evening was out, we had him singing an original.
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Rob McNurlin Sings "Blind Willie McTell." Many of us think we know a lot of Bob Dylan tunes. And then we think 
again of our good friend Rob McNurlin, who REALLY knows a lot of Bob Dylan tunes. One night last summer when Rob was home from Nashville and sitting in with us, our old buddy Zoe Brewer was in the room and she said, "Hey, Rob, do that Willie McTell song!" Rob thought for a moment and then out came this beautiful, little-known song that Dylan wrote in the early 1980s and didn't release until almost a decade later. It was the hit of the evening. (To see video of Rob doing this and other tunes at the jam sessions, click here.)
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A Two-Harmonica Wednesday. The jam session's always better when there's a harmonica in the room. Twice the 
fun when there's two of them! One night recently, The Flood's regular harmonicat, Sam St. Clair, was joined by Flood buddy Jim Rumbaugh, happily a frequent visitor to our Wednesday nights. Here we turned Sam and Jim loose on a version of a blues standard that we learned from vinyl: a 1961 Folkways recording by the late giant Eric Von Schmidt.
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Don't Get Around Much Anymore. It's always a 
sweeter evening when The Chick Singer's on hand. We'd not seen our Michelle Walker for a month or more. She's been busy with personal, non-musical business. But last night she rolled into town and cranked Wednesday night up a couple of notches. You know, there are tunes we never play except when Michelle is in the room, like this great old Duke Ellington number.
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Ready for the Times to Get Better. Our old buddy Paul Martin doesn't join us on Wednesday night nearly often enough, but when he does, he makes memories. Recently Paul 
came with his mandolin and sat in for the entire evening, producing smiles all around the room. Here he and his old bandmate Randy Hamilton team up on the 1978 tune, "Ready for the Times to Get Better." The song was originally recorded by country crooner Crystal Gayle, but it's perhaps better known in the folkie world for the Doc Watson version of a few years back.
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Sittin' on Top of the World. Pamela, The Flood's manager, occasionally reminds us that the weekly jam session is 
social as well as musical, a gathering of friends, regular listeners as well as players. We thought of that again as we listened to this track, which seems to capture the feeling of this particular evening. The end of a long, hot summer. Folks coming in happy … happy to be out of the heat, happy to see old friends again, happy to settle into this old Mississippi Sheiks tune that's as comfortable as a soft hat and cool breeze...
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What's in the Soup This Week? What we love about the Wednesday night jam sessions is that each one's different, depending on who's in the mix. It's like a good soup made from whatever ingredients just happen to be in the kitchen at the time. Some Wednesdays are all about blues, others are country or folk. This particular session was a swinging evening, with the main ingredients being Doug Chaffin on bass, Joe Dobbs on fiddle, Jim Rumbaugh on harmonica, Randy Brown on guitar, and the rest of us just reaching out and holding on for the ride…
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Randy Brown & Joe Dobbs Jam Like the Old Days. Randy Brown is a jazz guitar player who regularly sits in with us and just classes up the joint! And whenever he starts 
playing great handfuls of what our Doug Chaffin calls "those Louisville chords," it's fun to watch the jaws drop around the room. Randy has known Joe Dobbs almost as long as The Flood has, with shared musical memories reaching back to the late 1970s. Last night, we got the two of them jamming on a few fiddle-and-guitar duets. These days, the Wednesday night jam sessions have become all the richer now that Randy has become a regular.
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Mike Smith Comes Home to the Family Flood. We've not seen our great friend, Mike Smith, for months and 
months. In fact, since our last get-together, Mike went back home to England to visit with family and friends for three weeks or so. But now he's back in the States and recently he came back to his Flood family. Mike's quite a musician. In addition to playing a lyrical fiddle, he also stops us in our tracks with his a cappella ballads. Here he takes along on Christy Moore's wonderful song, "A Stitch in Time." Oh, and stay tuned when the singing's done, because the lyrics inspire Doug Chaffin to tell us a story.
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She's The Ohio. Not long ago, our dear friend Phyllis Dale came by for a long-overdue visit with The Flood. And on the podcast the next day, we featured a couple of Phyllis's good-time tunes, the kind of numbers with which she used to rock The Delta Queen steamboat, where she was an on-board entertainer for 10 years. But there's another side to Phyllis Dale too -- the ballad singer and songwriter. Here's another track from that evening. This time Phyllis does her wonderful composition, "She's the Ohio." And listen closely -- that's our friend Wendell Dobbs sitting in on flute for the solos.
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Payday. The Flood has been doing this great old 
Mississippi John Hurt song, for years now. In fact, it's featured on the first CD we recorded a decade ago this summer. But it is still a favorite at the weekly jam session, where the tune takes on a different personality, depending on who's sitting in that night. On this version, we were especially energized because the great guitarist Jesse Smith was on hand, and his stellar finger-pickin' solos took "Payday" to a whole 'nother level!
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Phyllis Dale Finally Parties with The Flood. It was more than 15 years ago when we met singer/pianist Phyllis 
Dale, the original Red Hot Mama of The Delta Queen riverboat. For more than a decade, every night Phyllis played whatever the crowd wanted when the passengers gathered for the after-hour parties in the steamboat's great old Texas Lounge. Phyllis is an original, a born entertainer and we've been waiting for years to get her up here for one of our Wednesday night jam sessions. Well, finally we had our night, and The Flood's own crowd was enthralled.
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Wendell Dobbs Sits In with His Oughta-be-Brother, Joe. Joe Dobbs and Dr. Wendell 
Dobbs are not related, but when you hear Joe's fiddle and Wendell's flute together, you'd swear these Dobbses were brothers. Or at least, they ought to be. Wendell, a music professor at Marshall University and a section leader of the Huntington Symphony Orchestra, is an old friend. Here, he and Joe put their special touch on a beautiful ballad from the British Isles, "The Water is Wide."
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A Great Evening with Jesse Smith. Our friend 
Jesse Smith -- the phenomenal, nationally known fingerpicker -- came down from his home in Wadsworth, Ohio, near Akron, to sit in with us last night for one sweet evening. Jesse makes everything sing -- just listen to his solo near the end of our trot through this 1918 Leo Wood standard. And stayed tuned as he leads the guys on a tear through "Little Rock Getaway."
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The Aussies Have Landed! It's always a good summer when our friends Rod and Judy Jones arrive on one of 
their regular visits from their native Australia. And now 2011 is officially a good summer. The Aussies have landed again! The Flood first met Rod and Judy, expert players of old-time stringband music of the 1920s and '30s, more than three decades ago, during the couple's first visit to The States. Then, as now, whenever they sit in with us, we all get back to our roots.
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Paul Martin Swings by the Jam Session. One of our favorite local bands used to be Sheldon Road, a trio of 
great singers and pickers named Paul Martin, Randy Hamilton and Kenny Adams. Alas, the group disbanded a few years ago, but we've stayed in touch with all the guys. In fact, Randy Hamilton has been sitting in with us on bass for several weeks now. And last night, Randy's old compatriot Paul Martin dropped in with his sweet mandolin. We even got Paul singing some -- here he leads us through a great old Bob Dylan standard.
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Rog Samples' Flood Homecoming. When someone 
says The Flood is an eclectic string band, they're actually paying tribute to one of our founders, Roger Samples. And whenever Roger stops by to sit in again with his old partners, as he did recently, we're reminded all over again of just how wide and deep our dear friend's musical tastes run, from folk and blues and The Beatles to a sweet old Jimmy Rodgers tune. Here are three tracks from Roger's Flood Homecoming.
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The L&N Don't Stop Here Any More. Doug Chaffin has played with us for more than a dozen years now. Most nights 
he's busy driving the band on his big upright bass, but recently our buddy Randy Hamilton came by to sit in with his sweet acoustic electric bass, so Doug switched off to other instruments -- and he plays a bunch of them. On this tune, you hear him take the first solo on guitar, but by the end of the song, Doug's switched to his fiddle. Oh, and if you listen closely, you'll hear Randy also singing that high harmony with us on the choruses of this beautiful old Jean Ritchie composition.
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The Flood Gets Churched with Rob McNurlin. 
We don't get to see our old buddy Rob McNurlin nearly often enough. But recently the Ashland, Ky., singer-songwriter was home from Nashville and waiting on the doorstep before the jam session even got started. The whole evening was shaped around Rob's tunes, and our favorite part was when we got him into a mood for some of his gospel tunes.
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A Huge Send-Off for Jacob Scarr. Jacob Scarr 
started sitting in with us when he was 14 years old, and has played lead guitar as a regular member of The Flood for the past three years. Well, now Jacob's 18 and at the end of this summer, he'll be heading off to college in Colorado. Recently, we moved the regular Wednesday night jam session to Jacob's house, where neighbors, family, friends and Flood fans all came together for a huge send-off party in Jacob's honor. And of course, on the morning-after, we had to share a couple of tunes from that special night with our podcast friends.