In Memoriam: Dave Peyton, The First Floodster
#388 / Flood Time Capsule: 2020
When at 76 David Peyton died four years ago today, we lost our most important, most beloved Floodster.
The fact is The 1937 Flood simply would not exist were it not for Dave.
Everything about the band over the decades— 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 through the creative instincts of Brother Peyton.
In the Beginning…
David started making music about a decade before The Flood was even a gleam in anybody’s eye.
And for his own instrument, Peyton, always the innovator, took a less-traveled road. Choosing to eschew the guitar that most of his contemporaries took up, he instead devoted himself to the comparatively unknown Autoharp.
Years later, in an interview on Joe Dobbs’ “Music from the Mountains” radio show, Dave talked about how he came to the instrument. Click the button below to hear Dave tell that story:
In The Flood’s formative years in the mid-1970s, Dave was the essential connection between Joe, Roger Samples, Bill Hoke and Charlie Bowen. David and Susan’s beautiful Mount Union Road home was even the venue for the earliest jam sessions that brought the band to life.
Mad Ideas
So many new ideas were Dave’s ideas. For instance, after a season of researching in Louisiana’s Cajun country, Peyton came home to Huntington with a love to the musical possibilities of the washboard, notions that he soon incorporated into Flood culture with his creation of “Wallace the Washboard.”
It was only a short step from there to his becoming the band’s “voodoo guru of kazoo.”
As a popular — and sometimes controversial — newspaper columnist, Peyton was well-known throughout the state and was responsible for some of The Flood’s most memorable performances.
It was through Dave’s good works that the band played gigs ranging from jamming with Sen. Bob Byrd to opening for Little Jimmy Dickens and playing for a clog-dancing Gov. Bob Wise, from performing with the Huntington Symphony Orchestra to entertaining at Ken Hechler’s 100th birthday party.
The Songs
Moreover, Dave diligently kept his band true to its West Virginia roots, often using his mad skills for journalistic research to locate rare tunes born in the Mountain State. Songs like Aunt Jennie Wilson’s “Banks of the Old Guyan” and Dick Justice’s rollicking and randy “Furniture Man” came to The Flood from Dave.
It was also through such efforts that the band was introduced to the number that truly became The Dave Peyton theme song, a little-known treasure he discovered more than a quarter of a century ago.
Here, from The Flood’s second studio album in 2002, is Dave leading the guys on his classic rendering of “Moonshine in The West Virginia Hills.” Click the button below to give it a spin:
About That Tune
Written by West Virginia-born musician Roy Harvey, the song originally was recorded by Harvey at a Oct. 22, 1929, Columbia Records session in Johnson City, TN, as a gentle parody of the Mountain State’s official song, “The West Virginia Hills.”
By the time of the recording, Harvey already was a well-established artist, having been been the guitarist in Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers since 1926.
A native of Greenville, WV, in Monroe County, Harvey appeared on more than 200 records by 1931, the year that the Depression ended his recording career. Over the next decade, Roy drifted from place to place, working various jobs, from police officer to newspaperman. In 1942, he re-located to Florida, where he worked as a railroadman until his death in 1958.
Dave’s Exit
Dave Peyton’s more than four decade of picking with The Flood abruptly ended on an awful September morning in 2016. As reported here earlier, a bad fall at the Peyton house shattered David’s left elbow, meaning he could no longer play his beloved Autoharp.
A year later, though, the band was able to draw him back into The Flood orbit, not playing, but as the storyteller at each month’s edition of the then-new Route 60 Saturday Night variety show.
Everyone hoped for a long run on that wonderful stage at Barboursville’s Route 60 Music Co.
Alas, though, in March 2020, just as the show was ready to launch its third year, the Covid-19 virus shut down the world. Route 60 Saturday Night was one of the pandemic’s many victims.
Because of the seemingly endless quarantine, band rehearsals were suspended. During those long, dark months, not only could the band members not see each other, but no one got to visit with the Peytons. The Covid shutdown was less than six months old when Dave died at the beginning of September 2020.
The Peyton Tributes
To this day, David’s friends are in awe of the special brand of alchemy he brought to his band. What a gift he had for going from the fierce to the fun-loving and back again at the speed of a laugh and wink. Everyone else in the room just hurried alongside him, trying to keep up.
The following video tribute, released the day after his passing, commemorates his life and times:
And if you want to spend a little more quality time with Peyton on the day of remembrance, tune in the David Channel on the band’s free Radio Floodango music streaming service.
🦋🩷