Backflip Envy
#358 / Flood Time Capsule: 2002
The legend of The Flood Backflip began 22 years ago this week.
It all started when the band was invited to appear with three other groups on stage at the old Huntington High School’s Renaissance Center auditorium. The event was called Renaissance Jam, a fundraiser on behalf of Arts Resources for the Tri-State.
June 8, 2002, was a hot evening, and not just musically. The auditorium was not air-conditioned (uh, hence the fundraiser)!
Cast of Players
On the bill with groups called Second Generation and the Blain Brothers Blues Band, The Flood for the first time also shared the stage with old friends Linda and Wendell Dobbs and their wonderful Irish band, Shenanigans! (later renamed Blackbirds and Thrushes).
(Incidentally, as reported in an earlier Flood Watch article, The Flood and the Dobbses were to reprise their collaboration a year later atop Snowshoe Mountain, the night that was also the debut of Michelle, the Chick Singer. To read that story, click here.)
Press Coverage
Promoting the ARTS Renaissance event, Traci Fricke told Dave Lavender of The Herald-Dispatch that the show was a great way to get lots of different folks to check out the new Renaissance Center and to see how it housed various arts groups, a co-op art gallery, a senior housing complex and a YMCA facility.
"All the groups that are playing are committed to the Renaissance as a community building," Fricke added. "We are very pleased that they are performing at the jam."
Backflip Night
The evening also goes down in Flood Lore as “The Backflip Night.”
That’s because on stage early in the show, the youthful Blain Brothers performed acrobatics during and after each tune.
Witnessing that, the old boys of The Flood got to wondering. Couldn’t they get similar moves from their own youngest member, harmonicat Sam St. Clair? After all, at 37 Sam was more than a decade and a half younger than the next youngest Floodster.
However, Sam definitively declined all invitations to flip (backward or otherwise).
Nonetheless, from then on at Flood gigs after that night, Sam waved off repeated public challenges from his band mates to introduce what they just knew would be his awesome backflippery.
And Then…
Finally, the moment came — well, sorta — on an autumn afternoon in Kentucky.
It was two years after the Renaissance night, and David, Joe, Sam and Charlie hit the road south for a 2 1/2-hour trek to Whitesburg, Ky., where they were to visit with the WMMT-FM radio folk music show hosted by Floodster Emeritus Stewart Schneider.
For the November 2004 trip, Sam handled the driving, piloting wife Joan’s new van over the mountains and through the woods, allowing his fellow Floodsters to kick back and rest, laughing and lying all the way there and back.
The merry band reached Whitesburg about 11:15 and got set up. The show was live, so there was to be no backing up and erasing mistakes, nor any script or real plan for the next couple of hours. The guys just treated it like a concert and had a ball. Between songs, Stewart interviewed each of them.
Stew’s Surprise
When it was Sam’s turn to talk, his band mates chimed in with those now-familiar jibes and jabs about his failing to deliver on gymnastic fireworks. But this time….
Well, the always-imaginative Stew surprised everyone — including himself, probably — with a memorable on-air ad lib that went something like this:
“Everyone has been waiting for Sam St. Clair’s backflip,” he said, “and we’re honored that he has chosen our show for its debut. And not only that, Sam has decided to do it completely in the NUDE! Take it, Sam….”
Who knows what the radio show’s listeners pictured after that; what they heard was the cackling and catcalls from Sam’s Flood brothers that drowned out the rest of his interview.
Retelling the Tale
The band was still telling that story five years later when Sam’s status as the youngest Floodster was handed over to a newcomer, teen-aged guitarist Jacob Scarr. Click the button below to hear the tale, as it was related to Jacob:
The legendary leap even came up on Joe Dobbs' own radio show, "Music from the Mountains," in a bit of chatter that started out about the band's website and merchandise and then drifted into talk of premium services that Sam might offer to listeners:
More Stories? We Got ‘Em
A band that has been around for a half century has many stories, yarns, tales and outright lies that form its lore and legends. Often between the tunes at jam sessions, rehearsals and public performances, someone in the group feels a need to tell a tale, and if there's a recorder running, it is saved for the ages.
A collection of these ramblings is preserved on the website in the Stories section. Click here to give it a look.