The Last Bash
#124 / Flood Time Capsule: 1981
Forty-one years ago this week, the band played together in public for one of the last times before a near-decade-long drought in Floodishness (a dry spell that finally relented in the 1990s). The occasion was the concluding installment in almost 10 years worth of the semi-annual music parties that friends had dubbed “The Bowen Bashes.”
When 1981 rolled around, it was pretty obvious to us all that those big parties that Pamela and Charlie Bowen hosted in the spring and the fall were coming to an end. Some of the main bands that had played such a big part in the bashes — The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers, Front Royal, Joe Dobbs’ Fret ’n Fiddle trio— already had disbanded.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
And there were other big changes in the lives of those earliest Floodsters.
Joe Dobbs was set to re-marry, and he and his new wife, Linda, would soon move Joe’s music store — also called “Fret ’n’ Fiddle” — out of town, leaving Huntington for the greener pastures of St. Albans to be closer to the Charleston music scene.
Roger Samples soon re-married too. He and Tammy would raise a large family, eventually leaving West Virginia to move the brood west to Mount Sterling, Ky.
Meanwhile, another bright, shiny light was on the horizon. Personal computers had hit the market. Stew Schneider was the first in our bash bunch to catch the new wave, and he soon introduced Charlie and Pamela to its wonders. Dave Peyton came right behind us.
Pretty soon, Dave and Charlie started writing computer books for Bantam Books, a venture that led to a major change for Charlie. After 17 years of daily journalism, Charlie left the Huntington newspapers in the mid-1980s to begin a new freelance writing career in which he wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen books over the next decade.
In other words, for most of us — certainly for the founding members of The 1937 Flood — the 1980s meant a bit of a retreat from music as we pursued interests of family and livelihood.
End of an Era
So, the September 1981 bash is remembered fondly as the close of an era. But that doesn’t mean it ended with a whimper. Far from it!
That final gathering was one of the most memorable bashes on record. The reel of tape that Pamela recorded that weekend is treasured to this day, both for some of the best performances to that date by the old hands as well as for the sounds of wonderful newcomers.
Click the button below to hear a couple of vintage Flood tunes, starting with Charlie and Rog on an early take of “Down by the Sally Gardens” (which they had just learned from a Liam Clancy/Tommy Makem recording), followed by Joe and David leading their fellow Floodifiers on a memorable rendition of “June Apple.”
Also that weekend, a wild, wonderful West Virginia guitar picker — the great Frank Beale — tagged along with The Samples Brothers Band to make his only bash appearance.
Click to button below to listen to Frank with Mack, Ted and Rog rocking “Bill Bailey” and “Just Because.” (And Dave Peyton is hard to miss in this tracks as he sits in with “Wallace,” the new fully tricked-out washboard.)
Another highlight of the weekend was the singing of cousins Bill Hoke and Susan Lewis, late of the Kentucky Foothill Ramblers. The pair came with some stunningly beautiful duets that made memories for everyone who was on hand for those sweet autumn nights in Huntington’s South Side.
The button below will play Bill and Susan’s rendition of “Red Wing Blackbird/Blue Diamond Mine” and “Foggy Mountaintop.”
See the Film!
Want more? This party figured prominently last year when we put together The Flood Legacy Film series on The Bowen Bashes. You can revisit that video by clicking on the link below:
And if you want even more of the bountiful decade that was The Bash, you can view all eight episodes in last year’s legacy films for free.
