Flood Works the Phones (... and Joe Wears a Tie)

#380 / Flood Time Capsule: 2003

For a couple hours on a summer Sunday night in Charleston, the extended Flood family — band members along with wives and girlfriends — was on live television, staffing the phones during a pledge drive for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Of course, the band has always had an affinity for WV Public; by then the network had hosted Flood fiddler Joe Dobbs’ legendary “Music from the Mountains” radio show for 20 years.

Answering the Call from Michelle

So, 21 years ago this week, when asked to help out with the fundraiser, the band quickly agreed, especially since the request came from a new friend, the young woman who would soon become known as The Flood’s beloved Chick Singer.

Just a week earlier, Michelle had made her Flood debut at a gig atop Snowshoe Mountain. Wife of George Walker, producer of Dobbs’ weekly show, Michelle was also a WV Public employee. At that time, she was in charge of viewer/listener recruitment for both radio and TV, so it was she who ran the fund-raising telethons.

It was a busy time in Floodlandia — later that week, for instance, the band would spend a day gigging at the West Virginia state fair near Lewisburg — but manning the phone bank was worth it, if only for the memories.

The night The Flood did its volunteer phone duty was the evening the network aired “The Three Pickers” (Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs and Earl Scruggs) and a bluegrass special hosted by Vince Gill and starring Allison Crouse and Del McCoury and Nickel Creek. During pauses in the action, the cameras regularly returned The Flood contingent of happy chatters on the phone bank.

Joe All Tied Up

Also during those breaks, to make her pitches to viewers Michelle was joined in front of the camera by Joe, who — much to the amusement of his band mates — appeared as they had never seen him before: in a tie and coat. He looked none too happy about it.

Sam St. Clair — who by then was celebrating his second year as a Floodster — was so amused by the sight that he sketched the glum-looking Joe. This beloved keepsake in The Flood’s archive is seen above.

Web Bling

Meanwhile, a more imaginative bit of Sam’s doodles from that evening had even longer legs. Between phone calls, Sam’s came up with a quirky, wonderful Flood logo: a busy ant using its multiple arms to play a banjo and a fiddle at the same time, a salute Floodsters Chuck Romine and Dobbs.

The band loved Sam’s creation so much that for the next three or four years it anchored the front of the Flood web site, as shown above.

More Flood History

If you’d like to see where this yarn fits in the larger crazy quilt of Flood lore, check out the Flood History section of the Flood Watch newsletter.

Click here to reach it.