When Joe Re-Met Margaret
#492 / Flood Time Capsule: 2014
Eleven years ago this week, Flood folks at the Bowen House got reacquainted with a friend from a lifetime ago.
Margaret Ray was never a member of The Flood, but she had deep roots within the band’s extended family. Tracing back nearly 40 years, Margaret was known as a beautiful young hot guitar player who attended the cool and crazy Bowen Bash music parties where The Flood was born.
Margaret’s Mad Chops
Her arrival at those late-1970s gatherings turned a lot of heads and challenged some preconceptions. The Bash crowd always had lots of respect for female musicians, but some thought of women primarily as singers, not as monster guitar pickers.
But then Margaret, without saying a word, shattered those notions, leaving partygoers blown away by her guitar chops.
Margaret played guitar with Joe Dobbs and others as early as a 1979 "Gallery Bash" where she joined with The Flood, Rod and Judy Jones and The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers and others.
Soon after that, her crystal-clear guitar picking became a prominent feature in a new group — called “Fret ’n Fiddle” — that she formed with Joe Dobbs and Bill Hoke, appearing alongside The Flood at Huntington’s 1980 Dogwood Arts & Crafts Festival.
With Margaret on guitar, Bill on bass and Joe doubling on fiddle and mandolin and all of them singing leads and harmonies, the trio went on to play gigs all over the state and beyond.
The 1980s and ‘90s
Margaret's relationship with the Dobbs family was deeply intertwined. "I loved her the first time I met her,” Joe’s daughter, Diana, has said. “Margaret was my sister from another mother." Margaret reciprocated these feelings.
The connection solidified for a brief period in the mid-1980s when Margaret married to Joe's eldest son, Dale. During this time, she even helped form the "Dobbs Family Band,” with Dale on bass backing up Joe and Margaret and other pickers, like Gerry Collyard, as honorary Dobbses.
By the 1990s, Margaret faced significant challenges. She was remarried, then widowed when Sam — her husband of 20 years — died and she struggled with health problems of her own.
These difficulties led her to even give up her music. Joe Dobbs vividly recalled the bleak day when she showed up at his music shop in St. Albans, WV, to sell her guitars. “I hadn’t seen her years,” Joe told his band mates later, “and honestly, I didn’t recognize her at first. I was shocked and sad that she wasn’t going to play any more.”
Rediscovering Margaret
For over a decade, Joe and the rest of the Family Flood lost touch with Margaret. However, her deep affinity with Joe ultimately led to a remarkable resurgence of their relationship. And after he reconnected with her, Joe brought her to her first Flood rehearsal one evening in July 2014.
Although frail and quiet, "as soon as the music started and we saw that twinkle in her eye, we also saw our old friend again,” Charlie Bowen told his cousin Kathy in an email the morning after.
Joe even got her playing music again. As Margaret later wrote on Facebook, "I had not played guitar in over 30 years. I had sold with all my instruments. Then Joe called me a few months after Sam had passed and invited me to play. I couldn't play a note, so I started learning guitar all over again. I believe Joe contacting me was a gift."
Soon she was regularly tagging along with Joe to Flood rehearsals and jamming on the old songs.
On the Road
Beyond music, Joe and Margaret shared good times, making the last years of their lives a sweet thing to watch.
For instance, just three days after Margaret’s initial Flood visit, she and Joe were off for an eight-day vacation in Alaska. This was followed by more trips around the country, such as music trip to festivals.
A particularly poignant memory occurred in January 2015. During a trip home from the Smoky Mountains, Joe and Margaret made a detour to visit Roger Samples, a co-founder of the band who was also struggling with health issues.
Margaret, recognizing the significance of the moment, used her phone to capture a video, preserving what turned out to be the last time that Joe and Roger ever played together.
“This is a video we will treasure forever,” Charlie said in an email to Kathy, a testament to Margaret’s thoughtful nature and her role in the band’s musical history.
Rest in Peace, Margaret
Margaret Ray passed away in September 2019 — four years after Joe’s death — at at her home in Green Bottom, WV, after battling cancer. She was 64. Her passing deeply touched the band, which put together the video below tribute as a remembrance: