Cousin Kathy's Christmases
#285 / Flood Time Capsule: 2007
Kathy Castner has never been a member of The Flood, but she has always been one of the band’s favorite visiting singers ever since 16 years ago this week when she first sat in with the group.
The Rose Riter Effect
Christmas season usually brings Kathy to Huntington to visit her cousin (and honorary big brother), Floodster Charlie Bowen. And for Kathy’s December 2007 trip, Flood Fan Extraordinaire Rose Marie Riter said, "We gotta celebrate with a party.”
Now, as everyone knows, when Miz Rose wants something to happen, it usually happens, and Rose made that night especially memorable.
Kathy has a beautiful voice, inherited from her mom, but she has always been shy about performing in public.
However, that night, encouraged by the band — and perhaps fortified by an eggnog or two (we can't remember, and probably wouldn't tell if we did) — Kathy stepped up and brought down the house with her spot-on vocals.
Recording
The following evening — urged on by her new super-fan, fiddler Joe Dobbs — Kathy sat in with The Flood at a rehearsal, a night that resulted in a beloved audio memento.
Here from that evening — recorded by the Bowens’ good and noble neighbor Bo Sweeney and with a supporting cast of Joe and Charlie, Doug Chaffin and Dave Ball — is Kathy’s rendition of “Loving Arms,” the Tom Jans classic:
Christmas Present, Christmas Future
Since 2007’s visit, Kathy has brought holiday spirit with her to the Bowen household nearly every Christmas, and, if we're lucky, her visit coincides with that week’s Flood gathering.
Kathy still sings in public only a couple of times a year — usually only during her Huntington visits — but, wow. As bassist Randy Hamilton says every time, listening to her beautiful voice, you'd think she was singing every evening.
Here from last year’s Kathy Christmas is a tune that has a long tradition for her and her cousin.
As a child, Kathy regularly visited relatives in Ashland, Ky., where Charlie lived with their grandma, who often assigned him to sing the little girl to sleep at her bedtime.
One of the tune he usually brought to bear on her tiny eyelids was this New Christy Minstrels number — “Today (While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine)” — and the two of them still sing it together all these decades later. Click the button below to hear its 2022 version, as preserved on that week’s Flood podcast: