How Doug Chaffin Came to The Flood

#23 / Flood Time Capsule: 1999

The news 22 years ago this week was full of “Y2K,” shorthand for "the year 2000.” Doomsayers were predicting a dreaded “Millennium Bug” would devastate our new year by causing widespread computer glitches as the yearly counter clicked from 1999 to 2000. Be afraid, they said. Be very afraid. Fill your basement with canned good and drinking water and get lots of flashlight batteries, because it’s gonna be dark and cold. Life Will Never Be The Same!

It didn’t happen.

However, New Year’s Eve 1999 did change life in The Flood forever, and in a very good way. A Y2K party in Ashland, Ky., marked the first time The Flood jammed with the incomparable Doug Chaffin, and he brightened and warmed our lives until the day he died.

Here’s how it started…

Rolling into the new millennium, Flood founders Dave Peyton, Charlie Bowen and Joe Dobbs had spent several years looking to add a bass to the ensemble. Joe — who always told us "if you don't have a bass, you don't have a band” — was nonetheless pessimistic about our prospects.

"We're not going to find a bassman who wants to play the weird stuff we're doing these days," Joe said, referring to the band's eclectic mix of folk, blues and swing.

So far he had been correct on that score.

Oh, during the previous summer, Joe had brought around one bass player to the practice. "Don't scare him away," Joe said. "He's a preacher." The session started well enough — very well, in fact, for the first, oh, 30 minutes or so — but then, when we slid into some of the rowdier jug band tunes, we could tell from the abrupt change in his expression that he wouldn't be back. Joe just grinned and shook his head; sure enough, we never saw that guy again.

Enter Doug

Thus, in the deep and dark December, as the three Floodsters headed to Nancy McClellan's wonderful 1999 year-end bash, we pretty much figured we'd have to remain bass-less. However, at the party, as we kicked off some of the swing tunes we'd been playing lately — “Sunny Side of the Street," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Star Dust" — suddenly Doug picked up his bass and jumped in.

Now, for years, we had been hearing Doug Chaffin play solid bass behind fiddlers like J.P. Fraley, often right there at Nancy’s house, but we had no idea he was interested in swing stuff too. 

Listening that night to Doug's sweet bass lines cleaning up all the ragged edges of what we were playing that night, Joe winked and nodded. (Oh, want to hear a little of it? Nancy recorded many of her parties, and she just happened to capture the very first tune that Doug played with us that night, this rather raucous rendition “Somebody Stole My Gal.” Click here! You’ll have to listen closely, though, to the low end of the audio; apparently, Nancy’s little recorder wasn’t a great fan of basses.)

Later, during a break at the party, Charlie sidled up to where Doug was sitting on the couch with his wife Donna. But now Charlie had magically morphed into the ultimate frat boy and Doug was suddenly the prettiest girl in the room. "So, we usually play on Wednesdays,” Charlie purred. “You wanna pick with us? Or are Wednesday not good? We could change it. What night would be good for you? Tuesday night? We could do Tuesdays.” Watching this little episode unfold, Joe edged closer and whispered, "Watch it, Charlie -- you're going to scare him away too."

New Floodster

Fortunately, Doug doesn't scare so easily.

Within days, Doug Chaffin became a regular and has been with us ever since as our most versatile player. Over the years, Doug has played bass, guitar, mandolin and fiddle with The Flood, and is still going strong.

Check this out. Click here for a classic Doug Chaffin bass solo from a live June 2002 performance in Morehead, Ky. Listen to the band's reaction when Doug kicks into gear, then hear how he continues to drive the tune under Dave Peyton’s driving kazoo work that immediately follows the bass solo. Too cool.

A little later that same year, during a Flood visit to West Virginia Public Radio’s “Music from the Mountains” show, host Joe Dobbs got Doug talking about his rock ’n’ roll roots. Click here for that snippet.

Remembering Doug Today

Doug was a Floodster to the end, still jamming with his band mates right up to his passing in November 2023.

And finally, if you’d like to spend a little more time today with Doug Chaffin, take a listen to the Doug Channel on Radio Floodango for a randomly selected playlist of Doug’s tunes over the decades featuring fiddle, guitar and mandolin.