Silliness runs deep in the Floodisphere and always has.
Late Flood co-founder Roger Samples, for instance, had a thing for the zany spoofs, satires and parodies of 1930s-’40s musical humorist Spike Jones. From the earliest days of The Flood, Roger inspired — some might say infected — the rest of the guys with the same love for turning love songs into... well, let's say "romantic comedy,” as in song in the video below:
In that impromptu performance, recorded at a party 44 years ago this week, those original amigos Dave Peyton and Roger give the Spike Jones treatment to a usually lovely Righteous Brothers standard. As you hear, their band mates Joe Dobbs and Charlie Bowen are pretty much innocent bystanders until midway through the number when they are drawn in.
It’s about then that things start going wacky and awry. And at that point, the video also includes an historic rarity: yes, right there at 01:23 is an honest-to-god giggle from Brother Peyton, who chortles, “We’re lost!”
Listen and you’ll hear Peyton valiantly trying to get the tune back on track, but then five seconds later, Bowen misses his cue, comes in too soon and has to be put in his place. (“No, no, no,” Dave says. “We’re gonna sing again. Gonna heap it on ‘em this time!”) And undaunted, Samples and Peyton then gather the forces for The Big Finish.
The Last Bash
Recorded Sept. 19, 1981, the occasion of this comic confusion was the last of nearly 10 years of the semi-annual music parties called The Bowen Bash, which is featured below in the last episode of the “Bowen Bashes” legacy film series:
In the years following this final bash, there would still be occasional Flood reunions — the guys would get together “once a season, whether we need it or not,” Charlie would tell Joe on his new “Music from the Mountains” radio show in a few years — but for all practical purposes, The Flood went into recess until the early 1990s.
But the bashes didn’t end with a whimper. Far from it! That final gathering was one of the most memorable bashes on record, and there were even new faces and new sounds there.
And nothing summed it up better than David and Roger’s crazy take on “Unchained Melody.”
About the Song
Speaking of which, did you ever wonder why The Righteous Brothers’ 1965 hit was called “Unchained Melody” when nothing in the lyrics refers to anything being locked up or unlocked?
For the answer, you have to go back a decade earlier, when Alex North and Hy Zaret were hired to write the music for a prison film called — you got it! — Unchained. (The film centered on a man who contemplates either escaping from prison to live life on the run or completing his sentence and returning to his wife and family.)
After Todd Duncan sang the song on the film soundtrack, “Unchained Melody” became one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century. According to the song's publishing administrator, more than 1,500 recordings of "Unchained Melody" have been made by more than 670 artists, in multiple languages.
Of them all, The Righteous Brothers are most associated with the song. Their rendition, with a solo by Bobby Hatfield, achieved a second round of great popularity when it was featured in the film Ghost in 1990. In 2004, it was number 27 on AFI’s 100 Years/100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.