How Bill Hoke Saved the Day

#65 / Flood Time Capsule: 1998

Twenty-four years ago this week, The Flood played the first of what would be a number of years of annual appearances at the then-new Spring Festival at Huntington’s Heritage Farm Museum & Village, but for Charlie Bowen it was an inauspicious debut because of an unexpected accompanist: sciatica.

“I woke up about at 4:30 with terrible pain my hip and leg," Charlie told his mom in an email that evening, "so bad in fact, that I had to get out of bed and move downstairs. Tried to sleep on the sofa, but couldn't find a position that didn't hurt, so I spent most of the next three hours on my feet." By 8, Bowen was in a local emergency health clinic for x-rays and a diagnosis.

The good news for the band was that Charlie had an alternate plan. Floodster Emeritus Bill Hoke happened to be visiting that weekend from his Abingdon, Va., home and was staying right upstairs in the Bowens' guest room. From the clinic that morning, Charlie phoned him.

“Bill," he said, "I have a big favor to ask."

"What?"

"I need to you sit in for me on the music this morning."

"Oh gee, I..."

"I told you it was a BIG favor."

Well, even though he hadn't been playing much over the previous decade or so, Bill agreed to take Charlie's guitar and go with Joe Dobbs to meet Dave Peyton to start the Farm Gig, because Charlie -- still waiting for the x-rays to come back -- wasn't going to make it.

"I told Bill I'd hurry out to join them as soon as I got some pain meds,” Charlie told his mom in the email.

As it worked out, Charlie did make it for the later sets at the farm, playing under a tent outside. " When I got there," Charlie wrote, "I told Dave and Joe that, unlike some people we know, when I get sick, I not only find a replacement guitar player, but I find one that's better'n I am!”

Aftermath

The next year when the 1999 edition of the Farm Festival rolled around, Mike Perry, an old friend and founder of the farm, asked the band to play two one-hour sets in the reconstructed church and meeting house.

Folks came in, sat in the pews and listened. We had quite a nice crowd, even though we missed our fiddler. (Joe has a better offer, we told the crowd. “What's her name?” somebody shouted...).

And Bill Hoke played an encore that year. In town for another spring visit with the Bowens, Bill sat in with us and we were able to do a lot of three-part harmony. "The acoustics in there weren't the greatest,” Charlie noted in another email to his mom, “but the crowd was warm and friendly and we had a lot of laughs. Still, we're suggesting to Mike that next year, we go back to the tent outside. It's a lot less 'formal.' We ain't exactly a formal bunch...”