The Night We Had the Governor Dancing to Our Tune
#44 / Flood Time Capsule: 2002
Twenty years ago this week, The Flood partied on stage with Gov. Bob Wise and his friends — and his foes — in the West Virginia Legislature and the state capital press corps.
It was Dave Peyton who landed us the gig to be part of “The Third House,” a popular annual spoof of the lawmakers orchestrated by Marshall University's W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communication Alumni Association.
The evening of parody skits and songs, presented at the W.Va. Cultural Center theater, roasted state government leaders, most of whom were in the audience for the fun. That March 2002 night, The Flood not only provided accompaniment for some of the musical numbers, but also performed a half-hour pre-show set. All the participants wore signs with names of the officials they were portraying.
One hit of the show was The Flood’s rewritten version of its “Jug Band Music” standard with new verses like:
If you want a higher limit on your overloaded coal truck,
I’ll give you a million pounds for a thousand bucks
Campaign finance certainly is a treat to me.
Peyton wrote the new lyrics, and audible gasps could be heard from the politicians in the audience several times during the performance.
Hands down, though, the highlight of the night, as shown in the WSAZ-TV video clip below, was when Peyton called Gov. Wise — a not-so-secret clog-dance enthusiast — up on stage to hoof it with us during one of Joe’s rollicking fiddle tunes. (It actually didn’t take much to persuade him, by the way.)
The Flood had such a good time that the band came back for an encore gig in the 2003 show, at which Wise supporters presented him with a pair of “clogging shoes" to commemorate his Flood debut.
By the end of the year, Flood fellows were still talking about that March evening in Charleston. Here, for instance, from a fall 2002 episode of his “Music from the Mountains” radio show on West Virginia Public Broadcast, are Joe and David remembering The Third House.
Postscript: The J-School Connections
Of course, The Third House was a natural fit for The Flood. Not only were Dave Peyton and band manager Pamela Bowen alumni of the show’s instigators, the Marshall journalism school, but both were also students of the school’s namesake, W. Page Pitt, as was their co-worker, the late Tom D. Miller, who actually created the annual Third House.
More Peytonia
David Peyton was central to this particular Flood scrapbook page and many others. Here are a few other recent Peyton-centric Flood Watch entries you might enjoy:
In Other Business: Searching
Speaking of earlier entries, thanks to the kind encouragement of friends and fans, we now have published more three dozen articles here in Flood Watch since last fall. The pieces are full of new stuff (such as podcasts featuring tunes the latest rehearsals and performances), old stuff (text and photos taken from the dusty Flood files), videos, news and miscellany.
So, now that there actually is a “back” to our “back pages,” we thought it would be useful to mention a handy way to find earlier Flood Watch material, using the newsletter’s Search feature. To reach it, go to the newsletter’s Archive section with this link:
https://1937flood.substack.com/archive
On the subsequent page, you’ll see a magnifying glass icon on the right of the option bar at the top of the page just below the newsletter’s name.
Clicking that icon opens a search box in which you can enter a word or phrase. When you press RETURN on the search, the system rounds up all the articles that meet your search request and displays a list for you to scroll and click any that looks interesting.
We’re a bit fussy about standardizing the language we use in titles and subtitles, and that can help you in searching us. For instance, we use the word “podcast” on each new episode, so if you want to find our most recent music, search “podcast.” By the same token, search “time capsule” to find all the articles of Flood history that we’ve published so far. Other search words of interest: “video” to find film footage or any band member’s name to find articles that mention him or her.
Enjoy! And if you have any questions, let us know!