Sittin' on Top of the World

#33 / Jan. 28 Podcast

Some Bluegrass pickers who these days do the standard "Sittin' on Top of the World" might be astounded to find out where their tune came from.

It was actually written and recorded in the early 1930s by some Flood heroes: the great country blues band, The Mississippi Sheiks. And over the years, versions of this song have been done by everyone from Ray Charles to Bill Monroe, from the Grateful Dead to Willie Nelson.

The Flood has been playing the song for a couple of dozen years now. Here’s a cool rendition from last night’s gathering, with Veezy Coffman and Randy Hamilton trading choruses with our guest picker, guitarist Danny Cox.

Oh, and here's a curious bit of trivia. A great verse in this song goes, "If you don't like my peaches, don't shake my tree." Well, it turns out that the "peaches" verse has a long history in popular music.

A variation of the line even appeared nearly a hundred years ago in a chorus of a little-known Irving Berlin song, as "If you don't want my peaches / You'd better stop shaking my tree." Irving, you old dog, you!

Now, About Our Guest Performer

Ask our bass player Randy Hamilton to name his best friends on the planet and somewhere near the very top of that list will be Danny Cox. Now, we’ve been hearing about this marvelous guitar player for years now. But last night we finally got to actually hear him, and oh my!

From his Ironton, Ohio, home on a cold winter’s night, Danny tagged along with Randy to the weekly Flood gathering and immediately really warmed up the place. Danny Cox, you come back any time you want, brother. We hope we won’t have to just wait for another cool breeze to carry you back our way.

And speaking of guests….

If you’d like to hear more of the good folks who have sat in with the band over the years, check this out, the Our Guests Channel on the free Radio Floodango music streaming feature.