For many decades, whenever anyone at a Flood gathering was celebrating a birthday, the guys turned to David Peyton to lead them in a rousing rendition of … no, oh, hell no, not THAT song… (Does this bunch really look like “Happy Birthday to You” people?)
No, Br’er Peyton suggested a much more appropriate nativity-observing song for the Flood flock. Not only that, Dave enhanced the tune with his own special touch, the addition of a juicy reference to a sex scandal that was rocking West Virginia politics. More on that little tidbit in a moment.
For now, you can hear Dave’s birthday tune — a sassy 1930s hokum number — by scrolling back to the top of this article and click the Play button on the video that Flood Manager Pamela Bowen shot 14 years ago this week.
The occasion for Pamela’s footage was a housewarming at the clubhouse at the Wyngate retirement village where devoted Flood fans Norman and Shirley Davis had just moved. For the fun evening, about 30 of the Davises' new neighbors were in the audience.
Among them were guitarist Jacob Scarr’s grandparents who were also new residents. The senior Scarrs had been regulars at Flood gigs ever since their grandson’s joined the band several years earlier.
The Song
A highlight of the evening was Peyton’s performance of the birthday song; The Flood’s version of “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More” with Charlie Bowen and Michelle Hoge’s harmonies and solos by Dave, Jacob, Joe Dobbs and Doug Chaffin.
Back in 2003, when a take on the tune was included on the I’d Rather Be Flooded album, the band described it as a 1932 Tampa Red/Georgia Tom song. That was correct as far as it went, but a little deeper research would have taught the guys that the song actually was written and recorded a year or two earlier by a remarkable young singer/actor/comedian named Sam Theard.
Performing well into the 1970s under assorted stage names — including Lovin’ Sam and Spo-Dee-O-Dee — Theard was born in New Orleans in 1904. Before he was 20, he was performing with a circus, then working in theaters and nightclubs.
Meeting up with Flood heroes Tampa Red and Cow Cow Davenport, Theard recorded one of his best known songs — "(I'll Be Glad When You're Dead) You Rascal You” — for Brunswick in 1929. Over the years that song was covered by everyone from Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and The Mills Brothers to Fats Domino, Dr. John and Taj Mahal.
In the 1930s and ’40s, using the name Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Theard was a regular as a comedian at New York’s Apollo Theater.
It was during this period that he co-wrote his next famous song, “Let the Good Times Roll,” with Louis Jordan, who recorded it with his Tympany Five in 1946. In 1961 at the 3rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, Ray Charles won a Grammy for his version of that tune.
In the 1950s, Theard wrote for a number of jazz greats, including Hot Lips Page, Count Basie, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Roy Eldridge.
Then in the last decade of his life, Theard was discovered by television, appearing in episodes of a variety of shows, including “Sanford and Son” and “Little House of Prairie.”
The Ickie Frye Infusion
But you’re still thinking about that political sex scandal, aren’t you? The one that Peyton worked into The Flood’s version of “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More”? Okay, here’s that story:
The original song, as recorded in 1932 by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, included this verse:
There goes Joe with a great big knife
Somebody been messin' round with his wife.
However, when The Flood recorded it in a marathon studio session in Charleston in November 2003, Dave sang the verse as:
There’s Ickie Frye with a great long knife.
Somebody been a-messin' round with his wife…
Uh, Ickie who?
Sure, that’s not a well-known name today, but if you were a news-reading West Virginian in 2003, you certainly would have known about Phillip “Ickie” Frye, a bass-playing TV/computer repairman who had just blown up Gov. Bob Wise’s political career.
Newspapers across the state trumpeted the news of how Frye revealed that his wife — state employee Angela Mascia, in charge of European projects for the state development office — was having an extramarital affair with the governor.
Red-faced, Wise admitted his infidelity. “I apologize deeply,” Wise said, “to the people of our state for my actions. In my private life, I have let many people down." The following year, Frye even filed to run for governor to "dog Wise," he said, over the affair, but he dropped out when Wise himself announced he would not seek re-election.
Soon after The Flood’s album was released, Ickie Frye emailed Peyton to thank him for the shout-out on the tune. The ex-governor had no comment.
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