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.
Sallie Sublette Brings Some Sweet Western Air. Our old friend Sallie Sublette doesn't get back to us very often. 
It's all day in airports -- it takes three flights to get to her native West Virginia from her home in Pocatello, Idaho -- but this week, Sallie blew back in and gave us another taste of that sweet western wind. Here she does "I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." While it was a great evening, it was all too short, because Sallie was flying out the next day. But before she went to cross the Great Divide, she also left us with a beautiful rendition of a Kate Wolf song on that very theme.
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Joe Dobbs Plays Tunes About The Ladies. One of the things we all love about the weekly jam sessions is how related tunes tend to come up in bunches like wildflowers. Last 
night was the perfect example. At one point, Norman Davis -- who, with his beautiful bride, Shirley, are beloved regulars at our Wednesday night gatherings -- asked Joe Dobbs to play that old fiddle tune with a girl's name in it. Well, that led to 10 minutes of fiddle tunes named after women, from "Rachel" to "St. Anne's Reel" to "Red Wing" and more. Let's start the track at the moment with Norman asked his question.
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Roger Samples Sings "Chemo Blues." A band that's been around for 40 years has a lot of graduates. And the 
undisputed valedictorian of the class of Floodsters Emeritus is Rog Samples. Roger is one of the four founders of The Flood, and his vocals and beautiful guitar work, along with the great songs he writes, were central the band's sound for its first 10 years or more, before Rog and his family moved from West Virginia to the green pastures of Mount Sterling, Ky. We still get together as often as we can, and Rog and his brothers, Mack and Ted, are treasured friends. Now, for the past year, our brother Roger has been making a remarkable, inspiring stand against cancer, and with his typical wit and artistry, he decided there had to be a song in there somewhere too. And so, out of the fight of a lifetime comes his original tune, "Chemo Blues."
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I'll Fly Away. Wednesday night means The Flood's regular practice session, but it's become so much more than that. The jam session has evolved into a weekly reunion of old 
friends and new friends, folks we see often, others we see only occasionally. Last night a recently departed friend was on Michelle Walker's mind when she suggested this great old gospel number. In the playing of it, it quickly grew into a celebration of all the friends who had come together on that particular rainy winter night.
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The Flood Celebrates the 75th Anniversary of Its Namesake. Seventy-five years ago, most of the streets of 
downtown Huntington -- and many other cities along the Ohio River -- were under water, devastated by the great 1937 flood. So, if you're a band named after that natural disaster and you have a jam session on its poignant anniversary, what do you play? Why, one of the fine flood songs of Bob Dylan, of course. Take it away, boys.
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It was a Night for Newcomers. It was a night for newcomers at the Family Flood's jam session last night. At the recommendation of Joe Dobbs, bluesman Chris Sutton and his buddy Mike Lyzenga dropped in to share a few tunes. And from Princeton, 
W.Va., singer/songwriter Albert Perrone came with his friend and jam session regular Doug Imbrogno. Finally, in the spirit of all things new, The Flood introduced its new band mate. Bassist/guitarist/singer Randy Hamilton of Willow Wood, Ohio, has become our newest member. Randy's been sitting in with us since late last summer, and we figured it was high time we made an honest Floodster out of him. You'll hear him on both of these tracks from last night's do. First up is Chris with a bluesy original called "Elevator." Then come Doug and Albert with a wild and woolly rendition of that 1940s standard, "Enjoy Yourself." Doug calls our jam sessions the region's only weekly Irish caili. Well, thank to you guys, we certainly did enjoy yourselves!
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Pretty Polly. There must be a million versions of the song "Pretty Polly." You can trace it all the way back to the 
British Isles and ballads like "The Gosport Tragedy" and "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter." We've always played a little fast and loose with the traditional Appalachian melody and lyrics, particularly late at night, as with last night's version when it was the final tune of the jam session.
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Dan Cowan Sings "Rock Salt & Nails." Our weekly jam sessions are often blessed with extraordinary instrumentalists -- guitarists, fiddlers, banjo pickers and more -- 
but occasionally we're also joined by an excellent song stylist. Such a singer is Dan Cowan, who hails from the little town of Pinch, W.Va., in Kanawha County. Dan's work schedule doesn't allow him to drop by very often, but when he does it's always a special moment. In this track, it's late in the evening. Doug Chaffin brings out his fiddle and he and Dan duet on a great old Utah Phillips standard.
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The House of Rising Sun .... uh .,, Waltz. The jam session seldom starts with the same tune week after week, but often ends with one. After several hours of music, after the 
voices are spent and fingers are sore, someone's calling for the old folk music chestnut, "The House of the Rising Sun" usually signald that the collective is finished for another week. But that doesn't mean the assembly will play the song the same way each time. Sometimes it's fast and furious, other times it's slow and bluesy. Sometimes it's a serious ballad, other times, new, just for laughs. This night? Well, it wasn't a first -- but it has been a while since we've done it in waltz time…
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Thanksgiving Jam 2011. For many around here, Thanksgiving isn't so much about traveling. Instead, we're the 
home that people come back to for the holiday. On the eve of Thanksgiving 2011, we had our dear friend Jacob Scarr home from college in Colorado. And New Yorker Matt Parker was in the town visiting his grandparents. Well, we had to get these two young guitarists trading licks on an old blues, the way they have on Thanksgiving jam sessions in previous years. Oh, and if you listen closely toward the end of the track, that's jam session newcomer Sonny Sumner with a tasteful little ride on his electric. Yes, it was a guitaroarious evening.
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Michelle Walker Lights Up the Room. Bassist Randy Hamilton nailed it recently. As he was packing up at the 
end of the evening, he said, "Boy, there sure is a lot of energy in the room when the chick singer's here. She just radiates it!" So true. Our Michelle Walker can't make it to the jam session every week, but when she does, the room lights up. Here's her last number of the evening, and it's just as powerful as her first two hours earlier.
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Mark Keen's First Flooding. Pittsburgh harmonica sensation Mark Keen actually grew up in our town. In fact, he 
and one of our jam session regulars, guitarist Randy Brown, went all through school together here back in the '70s. Well, Mark was back home in Huntington recently and Randy brought him to his first Flood jam session. We had a ball! Mark limbered up his harps as soon as he hit door and we didn't stop for more than two hours. Now, we understand Mark doesn't get home very often but we hoping that from now when he does, he puts The Flood on his "to-do" list!
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Down by the Sally Gardens. Not long ago, Joe Dobbs added a fifth string to one of his fiddles which gives him a 
lovely new lower register to play with. Sometimes it's like having another instrument in the band, a cross between a violin and viola. Late in the evening at a recent jam session, Joe demonstrated how this innovation can give a whole new voice to tune like "Down by the Sally Garden," which The Flood's been playing since its first CD more than 10 years ago. Oh, and by the way, that's our buddy Jim Rumbaugh playing that beautiful harmonica solo.
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Cincinnati Rag. Sometimes one tune sets the mood for the whole evening. At a recent jam session, I said to Joe 
Dobbs, "How about a fiddle tune?"Out came "Cincinnati Rag," a great old Byrd Moore - Clarence Green piece from 1930 that we haven't really done much with in years. Well, it got everybody grinning. And if you listen closely -- that Randy Brown in the middle of things, taking a break on a borrowed guitar. It was just that kind of night.
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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…