A Friday Night at Marshall

#391 / Flood Time Capsule: 2001

Truth to tell, no one felt much like playing music that night.

It was Sept. 14, 2001. Horrendous images of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were just 72 hours old.

With those scenes still raw in everyone’s thoughts, silence seemed more appropriate than anything that could be sung or even said.

But the gig on the Marshall University campus that Friday night had been booked for weeks in advance. No one wanted to go back on the promise, especially since the kind invitation had come from two old friends, Marshall music professors Linda and Wendell Dobbs.

Healing Together

Moreover, as The Flood has seen many times over the years, in the hardest times the best solace often came from being together. Some of the Floodsters on stage that night were just starting to learn about that.

By the fall of 2001, while Doug Chaffin had been in the band for more than a year and a half, banjoist Chuck Romine had been with the gang less than half that time, and harmonicat Sam St. Clair’s Flood ticket had been stamped only 60 days earlier. The band was eager to introduce their newest compatriots to long-time Flood fans.

The Venue

The venue was Marshall’s Joan C. Edwards Center for the Performing Arts, where Irish fiddler Liz Doherty was coming to perform a concert entitled, "From Ireland to Appalachia: Listening to Two Traditions."

To fill out the program, the music department invited a number of local players, like Wendell and Linda’s Irish band Shenanigans, which rocked the room. And, besides The Flood, appearing with Liz were banjo players Dwight Diller and Pam Lund and fiddler Bobby Taylor.

The evening’s master of ceremonies was Flood fiddler Joe Dobbs. Here’s a little treat from The Flood scrapbook, audio of Joe’s introduction of his Flood family as it started its set:

Flood Tunes

For the show, The Flood amended its usual set list, adding several mountain ballads to the mix.

For instance, if you click the button below, you’ll hear Dave Peyton leading the band on his version of “Banks of the Ohio”:

Of course, any river-oriented song had the guys ready to jump into their jug band jones.

Here’s how Charlie Bowen made that transition:

Going Forward

Five days after the Marshall show, the band hit the road to Charleston to meet up with Buddy Griffin and finish work on The Flood’s first studio album, to be released early the next year.

As reported earlier, that turned out to be a pretty long night, since Joe had a secret plan: after the work was done, he wanted to stay in the studio and record an entire second album that he would release as Fiddle and The Flood. Click here to read all about it.

Want More?

If you’d like to see where this yarn fits into the wide and deep story of the band, check out the Flood Watch history department, which preserves stories of the band’s big events over the years.

Click here to give it a look.