Michelle Rocks!

Two couples drove in from Cincinnati for last weekend’s Flood gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky.

Traveling with her husband Rich on the eve of their first wedding anniversary, Floodster Emerita Michelle Hoge came in to join her old band mates on stage to put on what turned out to be one of her best shows in years.

Meanwhile, Carol and Craig Ellison, also of the Queen City, drove in specifically to take in the fun at the band’s favorite local venue. Craig, sitting with Carol at Pamela Bowen’s front-row table in the packed room, filmed many of the tunes from that May 20 gig.

Four Michelle Specials

Craig’s good work enabled us to create this video to highlight a quartet of Michelle’s numbers. It opens with a happy “Blue Moon,” which was a request from a member of the audience.

This is followed by perhaps the best moment of the entire evening: Michelle’s rendering of George Gershwin’s “Summertime.”

The Flood has regularly played this jazz standard for a couple of decades now, and this live take not only showcases Michelle’s steamy vocals, but also provides a vehicle for superb solos by Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton and Sam St. Clair.

During our monthly Sal’s gigs, we like to pay tribute to such legendary American songwriters, and next up on the video it was Irving Berlin’s turn, when we take a breezy ride on his 1927 classic, “Blue Skies.”

Joe Dobbs’ Favorite Song

The video’s concluding track — our version of the late Joe Dobbs’ favorite song, “What a Wonderful World” — comes with a story.

Now, our newest band mate, Dan Cox, never had a chance to meet the fiddler who was one of The Flood’s co-founders back in the 1970s; Joe died in 2015, seven years before Dan came aboard. Nonetheless, Joe is still very much a part of The Flood’s ongoing history, as Danny himself noted recently. Click the button below to hear him tell us a little story about going with his wife, Tami, to a family gathering and meeting a special lady:

Well, learning that the woman Dan was referring to — Tami’s aunt, Janice Kerns — was in the Sal’s audience, Michelle winked and quietly proposed a surprise: serenading her with “What a Wonderful World.”

It was a lovely moment. We will always remember Janice’s sweet smile as she listened to her favorite Joe Dobbs tune being played his old compatriots. Moreover, the song seems to celebrate all the friends and family in the room who have made the Floodisphere such a wonderful world to hang out in.

By the Way…

This is the second of two videos from the May 20 Sal’s gig. Last week we posted one created from Pamela’s fine filming. If you missed it, here’s the link: