The Grand Tour

#26 / Flood Time Capsule: 2002

Twenty years ago this week saw the start of one of the busiest periods in Flood history, as we promoted our first album with gigs in towns up and down the Ohio River and deep into mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky. By the end of the year, Joe Dobbs joked that we should’ve come out with T-shirts celebrating our “Grand Tour: 2002.”

It all started with a Saturday afternoon open house at Joe's Fret 'n Fiddle music shop in St. Albans, WV. "We all had a ball, and there was a full house at the thing,” Charlie reported to his mom in an email the next morning. “I think a lot of folks were amazed — or maybe stunned — by the kind of stuff The Flood’s doing these days,” especially the swing numbers regularly stirred in with the folk songs and fiddle tunes.

We even had costume changes. Because Charlie had taken to introducing David as our “Wizard of Kazoo” for his lively solos on the jug band tunes, Peyton responded by finding appropriate headwear: A magician’s hat from a Disney store.

Before we left town, Rusty Marks of The Charleston Gazette cornered us for this story about the new album.

The following weekend, the album release party was held in Huntington on a chilly winter’s night at the Renaissance Ballroom in the old Huntington High School in the South Side. Despite the cold and the icy roads, several hundred die-hard Flood fans came out to a party hardy with us.

Part of the reason for the good turnout was the wonderful advance news coverage we got. Dear friend Dave Lavender, a journalist who was still relatively new on the scene in 2002, wrote this story for Huntington's Herald-Dispatch.

Also, from WSAZ-TV we got a call from the late Steve Eschleman, wanting an interview. Steve did a remarkable job of editing the music and the words into a two and half minute report and getting it on the air just three hours after his visit with us. Here’s a video that starts with Steve’s story, then ends with WSAZ’s quick snippet of the party itself.

By the way, if you watch closely, at the end of the vid, you’ll also see Sam and Joan St. Clair’s daughter, 7-year-old Zoey Stull, in her first public performance as our featured dancer. Zoey would perform with us throughout “the grand tour.”

Finally, since that first album was the reason for all our hopping about in 2002, you might like to revisit it. Nowadays, you can listen to the entire CD for free online right here on our new Radio Floodango music streaming feature. Click here to start spinning the disc. Enjoy!