Taking In Strays

Holidays were hard for Roger Samples in 1975.

He was living alone, just him and Josephine the Cat rattling around on Mount Union Road where he was house-sitting for Susan and David Peyton. (As reported earlier, the Peyton family had left town for six months in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Dave was researching Cajun culture for his Alicia Paterson Foundation fellowship project.)

Nonetheless, that autumn was a fertile one for Roger and the fledgling Flood. That’s because every few days, Joe Dobbs would come by to jam with Rog; when he didn’t, Charlie Bowen did. In those waning days of the year, life-long friendships were formed.

Holiday Adoption

As the holidays rolled in, though, the pickings got slim. Busy with Dobbs family affairs, Joe couldn’t drop by as frequently. As a result, Roger starting spending many of his evenings at the Bowen house with Charlie and Pamela.

“Y’all take in strays?” Roger asked the first night he appeared on their doorstep.

“Come on in, buddy! Pull up a chair.”

A new routine developed. Getting home from a day of teaching at Mason County’s Hannah High School in Apple Grove, Rog would have supper with Charlie and Pamela, then he and Charlie broke out the guitars.

That year Roger was even there to help decorate the Bowens’ Christmas tree, stringing lights and hanging tinsel while they listened to the new albums by Jackson Browne and David Bromberg, Steve Goodman and John Prine.

Pamela usually was the only audience for the tunes Roger and Charlie worked out in those last weeks of 1975, songs like this one, which she recorded in the Bowen living room on Nov. 28, the night after Thanksgiving.

About the Song

One of the first things Charlie and Roger learned about each other was their shared love for Bob Dylan songs. For nearly a decade by then, both had been listening to Dylan discs and working up their own versions of his songs.

Quickly they found they each had a rendition of “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” which they had heard a few years earlier on the 1971 release of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II.

Dylan wrote the song in 1962, including it as a demo for M. Witmark & Son, which became his publishing company at the time. (That particular track, incidentally, has long been available as a bootleg; so has an outtake from the June 1970 studio sessions for Bob’s New Morning album.)

Over the years, “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” has been covered by many Dylan friends and admirers. Most notably, Elvis Presley recorded it in the spring of 1966, appearing as a bonus track on his Spinout album.

Elvis and Others

Presley was taken with the song after learning it from West Virginia’s legendary harmonica player Charlie McCoy, who played it the previous year on Odetta’s album Odetta Sings Dylan.

Dylan has said Presley's cover of the song is "the one recording I treasure the most.”

Besides Elvis and Odetta, others who have recorded the song include Joan Baez and Ian and Sylvia (1963), Judy Collins (1965), the Pozo-Seco Singers (1966), The Kingston Trio (1969), We Five and Glenn Yarbrough (1970), Rod Stewart (1971), Sandy Denny (1972).

Stay Tuned

Meanwhile, if you enjoyed today’s trek in the time machine, hang around. More of that late ‘75 vibe will be featured in a Flood Watch report next week, including a trio of Roger-and-Charlie originals and some vintage solos by fiddlin’ Joe Dobbs.