Dave Peyton's Last Jam

#115 / Flood Time Capsule: 2016

Six years ago tonight, David Peyton played for the last time with the band that he and Charlie Bowen created more than 40 years earlier. Of course, none of us could have known that such sadness was in the offing, that just two weeks after that happy late summer jam session, Dave would take a bad fall at his Mount Union Road home.

On the contrary, a fortnight before that terrible accident, the future seemed bright.

Dave was in high spirits, telling jokes and cracking wise, even suggesting new songs that we might try in the coming weeks.

There was even a bit of irony, because the last song that Dave ever sang with us -- "Roving Gambler" -- was one the first that he and Charlie worked out all the way back in the spring of 1974, before The 1937 Flood even came into being.

Want to hear Dave and Charlie’s last tune together? Click the button below for a short time machine ride back to 2016:

The Fall

Two weeks after that night, the Sept. 12, 2016, fall at the Peyton house shattered David’s left elbow, meaning he no longer could he play his beloved Autoharp. Of course, we didn’t realize right away how bad the injury was. Initially we all thought his arm and elbow were just very bruised, but when the swelling continued and he finally saw doctors a few days later, they sent him directly to the hospital.

A week later, Peyton was undergoing elbow replacement surgery. At first, things seems to go well. “David will have rehab, of course, after he comes home,” Charlie told his cousin Kathy in an email, “and no one seems to know how long that will take.”

Doctors told us that after the surgery, Dave would have to be careful in lifting things with his left hand/arm -- no more than 10 pounds -- although pressing down should not be a problem (meaning that once he heals, he would be able to use both hands when getting up from a chair).

Peyton was in remarkably good spirits when Charlie and Pamela visited him in the hospital; however, subsequent rehabilitation sessions turned out to be brutal for him. “I don't expect Dave to be with us much for a while,” Charlie wrote Kathy in late October. “I figure he’ll be out of the picture at least the rest of the year.”

Staying in Touch

As it turned out, David would not be able to return at all, though he did stay in touch with his old band mates. Occasionally, for instance, he appeared on stage with us as a storyteller when The Flood become the house band for the new Route 60 Saturday Night musical variety shows in 2017.

Unfortunately, though, it was when he was leaving the year-end show in that first season that Dave took another fall. It was not as bad as the earlier accident, but it was worrisome enough that he felt he needed to further curtail his activities.

Dave’s Last Two Years

After that, David seldom left his beloved Mount Union Road home, except for doctor’s visitors and occasional dinner dates with the Bowens. Dave and Susan’s son, David Jr., moved back home from Atlanta to care for his parents during these difficult days, times made even worse by his mom’s own failing health and by the coming Covid epidemic.

Many of Peyton’s most loyal fans in Huntington didn’t even realize how challenging Dave’s daily life had become, mainly because their only contact with him was through his regular newspaper columns in The Herald-Dispatch, where he seldom discussed his own problems.

Readers didn’t know, for example, that in late winter Susie suffered a stroke, after which she spent weeks in the hospital and therapy. Or that as soon as she returned home, Dave woke up one morning to find his legs were numb from his knees to his feet. The following day he had five hours of surgery on his spine followed by weeks in the hospital and in therapy.

During that period, his newspaper columns abruptly stopped, prompting letters from worried readers. Then, suddenly in August 2020 — just two weeks before his death, as it turned out — Dave returned to the pages with a column that began, “I am back, but I am here — just barely.”

Calling 2020 “an annus horribilis at Peyton Place,” Dave brought his readers up to date on his health situation, adding, “I came home to the news that, since I am 77, I have diabetes and if I get the coronavirus, I am most likely a dead man. I still can’t walk, but it is just as well. I haven’t been anywhere since I got home.”

But then, like magic, words from the “old Peyton” were back.

“Meanwhile,” he wrote, “I have my birds to keep me company. Four kinds of woodpeckers and two dozen other varieties.

“Recent additions to local wildlife include four raccoons — two adults and two cute babies — all four very destructive. Deer? Lots of them, including two fawns and two very proud mamas.

“And of course there is the TV where I watch the end of the world on a daily basis. What did invalids do before TV? Die much happier, I am sure. No matter what your year has been like, it has been strange, probably the strangest through which you have ever lived. But we are alive and that’s what counts.”

Yes, by then we all knew Dave’s health was failing, but we nonetheless were stunned and disheartened when news of his death came Sept. 2, 2020. It was almost exactly four years after his last jam with his old band mates at the Bowen house that summer night in 2016.

The Peyton Tribute

As we said in the film below which we produced as a tribute, The Flood simply would not exist were it not for Dave.

Everything about our band — its Appalachian roots, its sassy attitude, its willingness to wander pretty far afield in pursuit of the novel or the noble or, yeah, well, sometimes just the naughty — came to us over the decades through the creative instincts of Brother Peyton. We were in awe of David’s special brand of alchemy that could take him from the fierce to the fun-loving and back again at the speed of a laugh and wink. All the rest of us just tried to keep up.

Carry It On!

Has this got you realizing that you miss Dave’s songs as much as we do? Fortunately, our new Radio Floodango music streaming service offers an all-Peyton, all-the-time Dave Channel. Click here to, as Dave used to say, let the big cat jump!