Podcast appearances and mentions of Danny Cox

The mood can change very quickly in The Flood band room, often depending on whatever is the next song that crosses Charlie Bowen's rattlin' brain.For instance, in the first few seconds of this week's podcast, you'll hear the guys still laughing from the inside jokes and joys of the previous tune, while Bowen is ready to conjure up a more somber mood with some opening chords.Almost at once, Danny Cox and Randy Hamilton recognize the lead-in and join in on the 1950s torch song, “Cry Me a River.” Seconds later, Jack Nuckols is slapping a rhythm and Sam St. Clair is offering moody accents.Anything But PlebeianThe story of this song's troubled childhood — rejected in its first bid for movie stardom, initially passed over by the queen of jazz ballad, etc. — in an earlier post, but let's take another swing at it, this time focusing on a single word in its otherwise rather pedestrian lyrics.The bridge of “Cry Me a River” contains what writer Molly Leikin, in her book How to Write a Hit Song called “the best multisyllabic internal rhyme I've heard.” Specifically, the song rhymes: You told me love was too plebeian with Told me you were through with me'n'…“‘Too plebeian' and ‘through with me'n',” Leikin wrote, “are just as delicious now as when they were first written. This quadruple rhyme isn't just four syllables that rhyme, but four unique syllables.”But Jack Said No, And So Said MitchCool enough, but it was not everybody's cup of tea. In fact, plebeian (which, of course, is a snooty way of saying “commoner”) was just too highfalutin for many show biz folks.For instance, director Jack Webb originally wanted the song for his 1955 movie Pete Kelly's Blues, but he hated the use of the word and when songwriter Arthur Hamilton refused to change it, Webb yanked the song from the film.The lyric had no better luck at Columbia Records where the A&R chief — one Mitch Miller (of early TV's “Sing Along with Mitch” fame) — joined the plebeian haters and blocked it from being recorded there by Peggy King.The Stubborn SongwriterStill the songwriter stood his ground and refused to change his lyric. Wonder why, given the riches promised to Hamilton by having his song included in a Hollywood film? Well, writer John E. Simpson in his online newsletter “Running After My Hat,” has an intriguing theory.As noted in the earlier Flood Watch article, 27-year-old singer and aspiring actress Julie London, who would ultimately record “Cry Me a River” and have a monster hit with it, was married to Jack Webb at the time he would working on Pete Kelly's Blues.When Webb thought it would be a great idea to have some original songs, not just old standards, wife Julie remembered Arthur Hamilton. He was a young guy she'd graduated from high school with; in fact, he'd taken her to the senior prom.She and Arthur had drifted out of touch since their school days in the mid-1940s, but Julie remembered he'd wanted to be a songwriter. She gave him a call, asked if he was still writing music.“I was,” Hamilton recalled years later, “but I was writing them on the backs of prescription blanks, working as a delivery boy for a prominent drugstore chain.”When got the call from Hollywood, Hamilton cranked out three tunes — “He Needs Me,” “Sing a Rainbow” and (ta-duh!) “Cry Me a River” — the first two of which Webb used in the picture, but then Webb blocked the winner of the bunch because of Hamilton's refusal to change that problematic rhyme. Was It Code?So, again, why?“I've got my own pet theory about this,” Simpson writes in his newsletter, “completely unsupported by anything except speculation and a taste for intrigue: I wonder if the word ‘plebeian' was an in-joke of some kind between Hamilton and London? Lord only knows what sort of in-joke it would be. But it's a fun idea, isn't it?”Indeed. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

A relic of the Cold War, this tune was composed in 1955 by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy under the title “Leningrad Nights,” but later at the request of the Soviet Ministry of Culture was renamed "Moscow Nights" with corresponding changes to poet Mikhail Matusovsky's lyrics.For the first half dozen years of its life, the song was known primarily in the Soviet Union, where a young actor named Vladimire Troshin recorded it in 1956 for a scene in a documentary about Soviet athletic competition. Honestly, the film did nothing to promote the song, but thanks to radio broadcasts it gained popularity.The melody hit the big time in the U.S. in November 1961 when trumpeter Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen recorded it under the title "Midnight in Moscow.” For the recording, Ball was inspired by an arrangement he heard by a Dutch jazz group called “The New Orleans Syncopators” who recorded the melody earlier that year.Ball's version peaked at No. 2 on both the U.S. and U.K. pop singles charts and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the American easy listening chart.Chad Mitchell Trio ControversyIn 1962, at the height of the folk revival in the United States, “Moscow Nights” was recorded by The Chad Mitchell Trio on their popular live performance album At the Bitter End on Kapp Records.And thereby hangs a tale, as reported by author Mike Murphy in his 2021 book We Never Knew Just What It Was: The Story of the Chad Mitchell Trio. When the album was released, the guys were on a three-month tour of Central and South America sponsored, not by the U.S. State Department, but rather by the American National Theater Academy. That sponsorship became relevant when in mid-tour state department officials showed up and tried to supervise the shows. When the trio reached Rio de Janeiro, the singers were met by some surly officials from the U.S.'s Brazilian embassy. Following the performance, one of the newcomers hustled the guys into an empty room.“What do you think you're doing,” he said, “singing that Russian song?”The group actually did several foreign language tunes. The parents of the trio's Mike Kobluk, who had emigrated to Canada from Russia, had long loved Russian music and often helped their son phonetically learn native songs. “Russian song?” said Chad. “You mean ‘Moscow Nights'? What's wrong with it?”“Don't you understand what's happening in the world?” the angry official said. “We're here fighting the spreading influence of communism. And you think you're going out to all the villages and sing an anti-American song?”“It's not an anti-American song,” Kobluk interjected. “It's a song about friends having dinner in Moscow.”“It's Russian!” the official shouted.As Murphy notes in his book, “Chad, whose fuse was shorter than either Mike or Joe (Frazier), responded accordingly. ‘Wait a minute. You can't dictate what we sing or don't sing. We're not here representing the State Department.”The official stomped out with ominous last words: “We'll see about that.” At all the subsequent stops, The Michell Trio continued to defiantly do “Moscow Nights.” Finally, in São Paulo, the State Department's Jim Salyers — who himself spoke a little Russian — caught up with them and accompanied them for the next two weeks of the tour so he could closely listen each night.After that, his verdict? “Love the song,” Salyers said, adding with a chuckle, “Keep doing it with your State Department's blessing.” (He was not, incidentally, as happy with the group's performing its controversial “The John Birch Society,” but that's a story for another time.)Pamela the FolksingerAs a young folksinger in college, Flood manager Pamela Bowen had her own special relationship with “Moscow Nights.”A consummate Chad Mitchell Trio fan, Pamela devoted many hours to a close listening to the group's albums. In particular, she painstakingly studied their performance of “Moscow Nights.” Her goal was to duplicate the trio's precise pronunciation of Matusovsky's lyrics so she could perform the same song at folk music shows at Marshall University, where she was a journalism student.Pamela even brought the song to television when she performed it on a local talent show that aired in 1966. There her diligent research was recognized when a Russian-speaking member of the audience sought her out to complement not only her performance, but the accuracy of her hard-earned pronunciation. Alas, neither audio nor video of her performance survives.Our Take on the TunePamela had long retired her folksinging by time her Flood fellows took up “Moscow Nights,” so she could offer no guidance on those tricky Russian nouns, verbs and adjectives. Consequently, the tune today is an instrumental in The Flood oeuvre, drawing inspiration from Kenny Ball and all the jazz innovations that followed.It all started last fall when Charlie, practicing his five-string, stumbled upon the old melody. When he shared it with the group, Danny Cox immediately found it offered lots of a stretching-out room. The tune — performed here at a recent rehearsal — is a welcome change of a pace on a busy night.Another Date with DannyFinally, if your Friday could use more of Dan Cox's musical explorations, we've got you covered. Visit the Danny Channel on the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.Click here to give it a listen! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Napoleon never heard “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine,” because, well, it's not French. The tune might be Scottish. But probably not. Some say it's an American march. Maybe Irish instead. Or not.One thing is certain: Definitive derivation of old fiddle tunes is not the hill you'll want to die on. Most of the best-loved melodies have at least a half dozen different names, each usually with its own equally murky history.WhitherThis particular tune is considered traditional, and the first part shows up in several melodies from Ireland such as “Centenary March" and "An Comhra Donn.” A group called The Black Irish Band (who are from Sonora in California, so there's that…) recorded the song in the late 1990s as the Scottish “New Caledonian March.” And, in fact, back in 1837 George Willig of Philadelphia published it as “Caledonian March.” (Guess it wasn't “New” then….) But the tune also is melodically similar to English hornpipes called "Durham Rangers" and "Sherwood Rangers." Meanwhile in America, folklorist Samuel Bayard found the same melody was a common march tune in his primary collecting area of western Pennsylvania, circulating in the 1940s under various names, such as "Bruce's March" and "The Star of Bethlehem." A Keystone State musician told Bayard it was called "Ranahan's March," which he said commemorated a local bandmaster. North Carolina Fiddler Mack Snoderly has played a slow, dirge-like version of it, and he calls it "Dying on the Field of Battle.”But Bonaparte?So, how the heck does Napoleon get into this tangled tale?That was exactly the question pondered recently in an interesting bit of gab on an online discussion board called Banjo Hangout.It all started when a visitor posted a message with the title, “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine” and noted, “I was wondering which event the title of this tune implies.”After a number of fits and starts in the replies from various readers, banjoist Don Borchelt got down to cases. Noting that Napoleon's army did cross the Rhine in 1805 (in order to invade Austria and fight the battle of Austerlitz), Borchelt went on to say he didn't think the song actually referred to any specific spot of history, pointing out that a number of fiddle tunes refer to Napoleon.“As for the tune's title,” he said, “the various Bonaparte titles — ‘Bonaparte's Retreat,' ‘Napoleon Crossing the Rhine,' ‘Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine,' ‘Bonaparte Crossing the Alps,' ‘Bonaparte's March,' etc. — are often used interchangeably by fiddlers.“The one I generally hear called ‘Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine' is a tune pretty much of American origin,” Don concluded, “and the fiddlers back in the day probably had an imperfect knowledge of Napoleon's military history, in those dark centuries before Wikipedia.”Our Take on the TuneMaybe in the Floodisphere we'll just give our version of the tune the title bestowed on it by our Danny Cox, who with a wink recently said, “Hey, let's play that “Bonaparte Chewin' a Rind.”Actually, Flood old-timers first heard the melody 50 years ago this autumn when fiddlin' Jim Strother played it with The Kentucky Foothill Ramblers at the September 1975 Bowen Bash. It's not known from where Jim got it, but for sure a few years earlier, in 1972, North Carolina's Fuzzy Mountain String Band recorded a rendition that was popular among the hippy pickers of the day.So, if you'd like to run the time machine back a half century and hear Strother's playing that started this whole conversation, click the Play button on the bash legacy film below and move the slider up to 35:30.More Song History? Finally, if sorting out music history appeals to you, be sure to visit the Song Stories section of this newsletter, where we tackle the tales of dozens of tunes in The Flood's very eclectic repertoire. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Join Danny Cox as he gives his Sermon on the Fourth Sunday in Lent at Christ Church Cranbrook.

Join Susannah and Sarah as they explore what's happening with global trade and how it could affect the UK economy – touching on Trump tariffs, the UK growth forecast and interest rate cuts.Helen Morrissey, Head of Retirement Analysis, talks about how people can prepare for retirement and reflects on changes in the retirement space since the major pension reforms (Freedom and Choice) made 10 years ago.Special guest, Danny Cox, Head of Communications here at HL, tells us about how he was able to plan his finances for an early retirement.This podcast isn't personal advice. If you're not sure what's right for you, seek advice. Investments rise and fall in value, so investors could make a loss. Tax rules can change and any benefits depend on your personal circumstances. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spring in Appalachia is notoriously fickle. One minute the sun is promising an early wakeup call for the dogwoods and the redbuds; the next minute, snow is mocking our optimism.Last week started, for example, with a lovely, bright preview of April. However, in midweek, The Flood's weekly rehearsal was greeted by clouds, biting winds and cold rain. By the time the guys packed up to head home, ice would be forming on the back roads in the hills.But inside the band room, the guys have mad skills for climate control. Want some autumn leaves? They got a tune for that. Want a little taste of June? There's one for that too. And summertime? Shoot! Gotcha covered.Decades' Worth of Summer HeatAs reported here earlier, The Flood started playing “Summertime” a quarter of a century ago with various arrangements. Sometimes, for instance, it has been an instrumental, featuring solos over the by years by Joe Dobbs and Doug Chaffin, by Jacob Scarr, Paul Martin and Vanessa Coffman.The first time the song came to a Flood album — the 2002 The 1937 Flood Plays Up a Storm — Charlie Bowen handled the vocals. Eleven years later, by the time the band released its fifth album, Cleanup & Recovery, the guys had turned over the singing to Michelle Hoge.Nowadays, Randy Hamilton is front and center on the vocals. At last week's rehearsal, the first take on this tune was slow and bit lifeless, but then Randy said, “Let's try it again,” and kicked it up into a new gear. At the start of this track, you'll hear Randy ask his band mates what they think. “Yeah!” they all say, then Danny Cox lets his guitar register his vote with some of the most inspired playing the whole night.By the way, if you like to learn more about how George Gershwin came to write this American classic, click here for a backgrounder in The Flood's Song Stories section. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Even a rainy winter's night can be fun at one of Huntington's hottest venues, the remarkable Bahnhof WVrsthaus & Biergarten on 7th Avenue.The band hit the Bahnhof stage early Thursday evening, a dozen hours after a night of torrential storms that soaked and raked the entire tri-state from midnight onward.“Listening to The Flood after a flood?” mused by hardy fan at a ringside table. “Well, I can't decide if that's appropriate behavior … or whether we're just poking the eye of the storm gods!”Hard to tell. However, the fact is that it did start raining again before the band's set was finished.Weather TunesThe weather had an impact on the guys' song selection. For instance, Pamela's video from the evening opens with a highly hum-able hymn for any deluge — “Wade in the Water” — and the guys even invited the assembled flood victims to sing along.Then the musical weather forecast turned a bit more optimistic. In the hey-just-six-more-weeks-of-winter mindset, the band offered “Windy and Warm” — the John D. Loudermilk classic made famous by Doc Watson — which in Floodom is a Danny Cox specialty. The song wasn't originally on the set list, but when the band mates saw Flood friends Andrea and Scott Austin in the audience, they edited in the addition. Scott, a big Watson fan, often asks for the tune whenever he drops by The Flood rehearsal.The Dancing DoctorsSpeaking of docs, a perfect Floodish evening also includes a visit with the band's favorite prancing professors, Bonita Lawrence and Clayton “Doc” Brooks. Faculty stars of Marshall University's mathematics department, Doc and Bonnie started dancing to Flood tunes more than a dozen years ago. Initially they favored the late Joe Dobbs' Irish gigs and Doug Chaffin's waltz tunes, but lately, the dancing doctors have revealed a much broader repertoire. Pamela's video closes out featuring the pair hoofing it to the 1920s rocker, “If I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

For the past month, the world has been fascinated by a new movie about a 20-year-old with a head full of ideas rolling from the North Country into New York City in 1961 and changing music forever. The Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown just yesterday scored eight Oscar nominations, including nods for best picture, best director, best lead and supporting actors, best sound and more.It already had garnered awards and nominations, from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild, from BAFTA and Critics Choice.Our Tribute This week's podcast, a tribute to this wonderful film, features a tune from that same time period in the Dylan story. It's our version of Bob's version of “Corrina, Corrina.”As reported here earlier, most of Dylan's earliest fans know this song as a track on the Freewheelin' album, but it also was the flipside of his first single, a 45 rpm that appeared ever so briefly in record stores in the early 1960s.It's curious that “Corrina, Corrina” is not among the tunes covered in A Complete Unknown, since the movie is all about Bob going electric. As most diehard Dylanologists know, that 1962 track was the young singer's first recorded work with a band (albeit the barest bones of a band, just a bit of light drumming, bass and some tasteful solo electric guitar).That solo guitar was famously played by Bruce Langhorne, the same Bruce Langhorne who three years later reappeared in the Dylan orbit on the Bringing It All Back Home album, whose tunes famously are much featured in the film. Heeeey, Mister Tambourine Man….Our Take on the TuneOn this Flood track from last week's rehearsal, the guitars seem to be dancing together. Just listen to Danny Cox's big, warm solos over Charlie Bowen's subtle slides on his resonator.A Bigger Batch of BobMeanwhile, hey, if you've detected a Dylan deficiency lately in your daily diet, The Flood has a cure: An entire Bob-centric playlist is ready for a spin in the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.Click here to read all about it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Often the first notes of the evening set the pace, the mood and the tone for the entire rehearsal. As you'll hear on this track, Danny Cox walked into last week's session ready to set the Floodometer on sizzle. And it certainly worked. The Flood has been doing this great old 1920s jazz standard for only a couple of years now, but it's already become one of the band's go-to tunes for a good time, especially whenever Danny has new musical ideas to explore.About the SongThis week's featured tune — “Am I Blue?” — has a special place at the intersection of jazz and movie histories. That's because in 1944 a sassy performance of the 1929 classic marked songwriter Hoagy Carmichael's big break in Hollywood.Hoagy is best known, of course, for performing his own compositions (“Stardust” and “Georgia on My Mind,” “Up a Lazy River,” “Memphis in June” and so many others).However, when Carmichael was cast to play the character “Cricket” in Humphrey Bogart's To Have and Have Not, director Howard Hawks wanted a scene in which Hoagy — as a honky tonk piano player in a Martinique dive — is doing the Harry Akst-Grant Clarke tune when a 19-year-old Lauren Bacall makes her film debut.“My first scene required me to sing ‘Am I Blue,'” Carmichael wrote in his 1965 autobiography Sometimes I Wonder. “‘Am I Nervous' would have been a more appropriate title. I chewed a match to help my jitters…. The match was a good decision, it turned out, because it became a definite part of the character.”With some comic results. One morning during the shooting, Carmichael had a scene with Bogart, who walked onto the set chewing on a match. “My heart sank,” Hoagy wrote. “What can you say to the star of the picture when he's apparently intent on stealing your stuff?”Only the next day did Carmichael learn it had all been a gag. “Bogey let me go on thinking they had actually shot the scene that way.”Meanwhile…Elsewhere in the film, Hoagy is seen playing an accompaniment for the very nervous young Bacall as her character, “Slim,” sings his and Johnny Mercer's song, "How Little We Know,” which they wrote specifically for the movie.A 16-year-old Andy Williams recorded the song as a possible alternative track to dub Bacall's low voice; however, Bacall always maintained that the producers ended up using her singing in the film rather the dub.“I'm not sure what the truth of it was,” Williams later wrote in his own autobiography, “but I'm not going to argue about it with the formidable Ms. Bacall!”Meanwhile, more films awaited Hoagy Carmichael. As he wrote, he was cast in "every picture in which a world-weary character in bad repair sat around and sang or leaned over a piano.… It was usually the part of the hound-dog-faced old musical philosopher noodling on the honky-tonk piano, saying to a tart with a heart of gold: 'He'll be back, honey. He's all man'."Song HistoriesIf you would like to read more about the history of “Am I Blue?” check out this earlier Flood Watch report on the song.And for the backstories on other songs in The Flood's repertoire, peruse the newsletter's Song Stories section. Click here to give it a look. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Send us a textIn this episode, we interview Danny Cox, a seasoned marketing professional with a diverse background in digital marketing, content creation, and brand strategy. Danny shares his insights on telling the right story in a crowded content ecosystem.What you'll learn in this episode:How to discover your brand's authentic purpose.Strategies for balancing content creation with algorithm demands.The role of storytelling in building emotional connections.Tips for rekindling your organization's “why” as it scales.How to use AI as a tool without losing originality.Why brand values are crucial for long-term success.Listen in for actionable advice on crafting meaningful content that resonates with your audience!

Hoagy Carmichael was not quite 28 years old when he wrote what music historians consider THE song of the 20th century.Just how big is “Stardust” in the Great American Songbook?* Well, for starters, this is a song that has been recorded as an instrumental or a vocal more than 1,500 times. * Forty years after its publication in 1928, it was still earning more than $50,000 annually in royalties. * The lyrics that Mitchell Parish later brought to Hoagy's song have been translated into 30 languages.“Stardust” simply is “the most-recorded song in the history of the world,” music curator John Edward Hasse of the Smithsonian Institution once told John Barbour of The Associated Press, “and that right there qualifies it as it as the song of the century.”The closest competitor, he said, is “Yesterday” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and, at No. 3, W.C. Handy's “St. Louis Blues.”Young Hoagy and His SongLate summer 1927 found Hoagy Carmichael back home in Indiana after a romp in Florida; the young man was hanging out near the campus of Indiana University, from which he had graduated a few years earlier.As he related in his first autobiography, The Stardust Road, in 1946:It was a hot night, sweet with the death of summer and the hint and promise of fall. A waiting night, a night marking time, the end of a season. The stars were bright, close to me, and the North Star hung low over the trees.I sat down on the “spooning wall” at the edge of the campus and all the things that the town and the university and the friends I had flooded through my mind. Beautiful Kate (Cameron), the campus queen... and Dorothy Kelly. But not one girl — all the girls — young and lovely. Was Dorothy the loveliest? Yes. The sweetest? Perhaps. But most of them had gone their ways. Gone as I'd gone mine....Never to be 21 again; so in love again. Never feel the things I'd felt. The memory of love's refrain....Carmichael wrote that he then looked up at the sky, whistling softly, and that the melody flowing from his feelings was “Stardust.” Excited, he ran to a campus hangout where the owner was ready to close. Hoagy successfully begged for a few minutes of piano time so he could solidify that theme in his head.True?Is that really how it happened? “What can I say?” historian Hasse told the AP decades later. “It is truly a thing of legend.”The same year, Carmichael recorded an upbeat instrumental version of the song for Gennett Records. The next year, he left Indiana for New York City after Mills Music hired him as a composer. The Reception WidensWest Virginian Don Redman recorded the song in the same year, and by 1929 it was performed regularly by Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club; however, it was Isham Jones' 1930 rendition that made the song popular on radio, prompting multiple acts to record it.For instance, in 1936, RCA released double-sided versions of “Stardust,” Tommy Dorsey on one side and Benny Goodman on the other.Then 1940 was a banner year, with releases of the song by Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller. Since then, “Stardust” has entered the repertoire of every serious jazz singer and instrumentalist around the world.Willie's VersionIn 1978, country superstar Willie Nelson surprised fans with his release of his Star Dust album, which went golden after staying on the best-seller charts for more than 135 weeks.Nelson recalled singing it in the Austin, Texas, Opera House. “There was a kind of stunned silence in the crowd for a moment, and then they exploded with cheering and whistling and applauding. The kids thought ‘Stardust' was a new song I had just written….”Our Take on the TuneSince its composition nearly a hundred years ago now, this song has been performed by many folks as a slow, romantic ballad, drawing out the words and the melody. Good for them. However, when Hoagy wrote this classic, he performed it with a bit of the sass and sway that characterized the jazz of his day, and we in The Flood like to carry on that tradition. The song has some of the best chords of anything in our repertoire and in this take from last week's rehearsal you'll hear two solos in which Danny Cox is finding all kinds of interesting ideas. Click here to come along on his quest.More from Year 2024?It's been a busy, interesting year in the Floodisphere, with lots of new tunes as well as re-imaginings of old ones from The Flood's songbag.If you'd like to join us in a little auld-lang-synery, our free Radio Floodango music streaming features a randomized playlist built around the tunes in all the weekly podcasts of the year. Click here to give Year 2024 a re-listen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

The quintessential moment of a jazz funeral is the playing of “Just a Closer Walk to Thee.” Some say this custom goes all the back to early days of the New Orleans music scene nearly a century and half ago. It's a lovely story… and, well, untrue.The jazzman most associated with playing this beautiful song — New Orleans' legendary clarinetist George Lewis — revealed the tune actually has a much more recent history, one in which a barroom jukebox plays a prominent role.“The first time I played it was in the The Eureka Band” in 1942, Lewis told his biographer Tom Bethell. “We heard it on a music box, and a woman asked us to play it for a funeral” for her murdered husband.The MurderThe victim in this story, said Lewis, was in an uptown bar in one of New Orleans' rougher neighborhoods known as “The Battlefield.” He was just putting a nickel in the jukebox when someone stabbed him in the back.When the widow later learns that the song the poor man wanted to hear on that fateful evening was the new Sister Rosetta Tharpe recording of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” she asked George Lewis's band to play it at his funeral.Before that time, Lewis said, the tune was not known in New Orleans; however, after The Eureka Brass Band's performance, bands have been playing it at funerals ever since.The Song's Story“Just a Closer Walk with Thee” is a surprisingly modern song. It was published in 1940 in Chicago by Kenneth Morris, though Morris never claimed to have actually written the melody. In his book The Golden Age of Gospel, Horace Clarence Boyer tells how Morris was riding a train from Kansas City to Chicago. Along the way, he stepped off at one of the stops for some fresh air; while there, Morris heard a station porter singing a song. “He paid little attention at first,” Boyer wrote, “but after he re-boarded the train, the song remained with him. It became so prominent in his mind that at the next stop, he left the train, took another train back to the earlier station and asked the porter to sing the song again.”Morris wrote down the words and music — later adding a few lyrics of his own to provide more breadth — and published “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” that same year.RecordingsThe first known recording was by the Selah Jubilee Singers for Decca Records on Oct. 8, 1941.It didn't take long, though, for the song to get a jazzier treatment. Two months later, also for Decca, Rosetta Tharpe waxed the disc that would wind up on a jukebox in New Orleans and change George Lewis's life. After Lewis recorded it on his 1943 New Orleans Stompers album, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” became his most requested tune for the remaining 25 years of his life.Our Take on the TuneRecently when Danny Cox read here how The Flood played “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” at a friend's memorial service 20 years ago, he said, “Why don't we do that song anymore?” Well, why indeed? So lately the guys have been dusting it off and just listen to the soulful, sassy spin the lads have put on it. Here's a take from last week's rehearsal.More Churchy Stuff, You Say?If this week's selection has you in the mood for a little more of The Flood's brand of reverence, you might enjoy the “Gospel Hour” playlist on the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.Click here to read all about it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Before Floodster Emerita Vanessa Coffman left the band, she taught the guys her mom's favorite tune, a 1948 jazz standard.Everyone fully expected when the talented young saxophonist drifted away last year to pursue other interested that the song — “Black Coffee” — would go with her. However, then Danny Cox took up the tune and, with his guitar, gave it a new chapter in the Floodisphere.In fact, nowadays that same song often is an especially tasty way to start a Flood rehearsal, as this track from a week or so ago demonstrates.Incidentally, the song has an interesting history — a hit for both Sarah Vaughn and Peggy Lee — which was explored in an earlier issue of Flood Watch. Click here to read it.Pour Ya Another?If you'd like more from The Flood's jazzier jaunts, visit the band's free Radio Floodango music streaming feature on the website and tune in the Swing Channel. To give it a listen, click here.And while you're there, give the Danny Cox channel a spin too. It's a playlist of all Dan-centric tunes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Earning their chops in medicine shows and with minstrel troupes in the late 1890s, brothers Frank and Bert Leighton wrote and/or arranged many ragtime pieces for use in vaudeville.Among their work was a 1912 version of “Frankie and Johnny,” penned with partner Ren Shields, that would set the tone for many future renditions of the song, including a monster hit a decade and half later for Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers.The song that Poole and his pals released as “Leaving Home” on Columbia Records in May 1927 already was pretty well known by musicians of the day.For instance, on the same label in the same year, popular band leader Ted Lewis recorded the same song with the title "Frankie and Johnny: You'll Miss Me in the Days to Come.” Lewis included only the chorus and not the verses.But it was a half dozen years before that that the first American recording of “Frankie and Johnny” was made by New Orleans-born Al Bernard, one of the first white singers to record blues tunes. (W.C. Handy credited Bernard, in fact, with helping his own career by recording a number of his songs, notably “St. Louis Blues.”)Whew! That's a lot of intersecting stories here, but let's roll it back to Charlie Poole and the Leighton boys. Kinney Rorer, in his seminal biography Rambling Blues: the Life & Songs of Charlie Poole, notes that the banjoist closely follows the version of “Leaving Home” that the Leighton brothers created, though there are some differences in Charlie's chorus.About the LeightonsNow, no one knows just how Poole learned that rendition, but the Leightons were pretty influential. Among the ragtime pieces they wrote was "There's A Dark Man Coming With A Bundle” and "Far Away in Honolulu (They've got the tango craze).” Their most memorable and influential song was "Steamboat Bill" in 1910, a parody of best-selling “Ballad of Casey Jones,” which had itself been based on a song from the Leightons' vaudeville routine. Arthur Collins recorded “Steamboat Bill” in 1911, which would inspire Charles Reisner to write a movie for comedian Buster Keaton called “Steamboat Bill Jr.,” which released as a silent film in 1928.That same year, Walt Disney found inspiration in the movie and in the song to create the first synchronized cartoon with sound, Steamboat Willie.Back to Johnny and His Murderous MistressAll the Frankie and Johnny variations were based on an actual murder. Here are the facts of the case:At 2 in the morning of Oct. 15, 1899, at an apartment building located at 212 Targee Street in St. Louis, 22-year-old Frankie Baker encountered her 17-year-old lover Allen (Albert) Britt as he stumbled back from a cakewalk in the company of a prostitute named Nelly Bly. Albert and Nellie had just won a prize in a slow-dancing contest, but Frankie didn't feel like celebrating. On the contrary, she felt like shooting her lover in the stomach, which she did. Albert died in City Hospital four days later.At trial, Frankie pleaded self-defense at her trial — she claimed Britt had attacked her with a knife prior to the shooting — and she was found not guilty.Weeks after the murder, St. Louis songwriter Bill Dooley composed “Frankie Killed Allen,” a tune that gained some currency. The first published version appeared in 1904, credited to Hughie Cannon (also remembered for his better-known composition “Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey”).That brings up to 1912 and the Frank and Bert Leighton version entitled “Frankie and Johnny” (because, well, “Johnny” apparently flowed better than “Allen” or “Albert”). Since then, there have been more than 250 versions of “Frankie and Johnny” recorded, not to mention several film adaptation over the years.Our Take on the TuneWhen Jack Nuckols switches from drums to fiddle, it often brings back lots of old memories of music parties 50 years ago. This is another song that Dave Peyton, Joe Dobbs and Charlie Bowen first heard at those parties when the good old Kentucky Foothill Ramblers, led by H. David Holbrook, could play a whole evening full of string band songs from the 1920s and ‘30s.This track is from last week's Flood affair, when the group's old band mate Paul Martin and his mandolin sat in with current Floodsters Charlie and Jack, Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton and Sam St. Clair. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Having known each other since high school, Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox have bonds and shared musical instincts that bring lots of riches to our room.Whenever Randy and Dan put a song on the table — as they did with “Deep River Blues” and “Sunny,” as they did with “Ready for the Times to Get Better,” “Windy and Warm” and “When You Say Nothing at All” — they usually already have an arrangement started. It's ready for the rest of us to just jump on board and ride!That certainly was the case last week when they arrived at the rehearsal ready to share the latest tune they were woodshedding on: Neil Young's gorgeous composition, “Harvest Moon.” As you'll hear in this track, as soon as Danny started playing it and Randy hit the first lines, the band dropped right into their groove.About the SongConsidered one of his all-time best songs, Neil Young released “Harvest Moon” in 1992 as the title tune of his 19th album, written in honor of his second wife, Pegi, whom he had married a dozen years earlier.The song quickly drew praise from the music press. AllMusic's Matthew Greenwald, for instance, said the song epitomized "the power of nature and music, as well as a feeling of celebrating lifetime love.”Calling the melody “positively gorgeous,” he added, “It's one that could have easily framed a heavier song."Joining the jubilation, music critic Alexis Petridis wrote that “Harvest Moon” is a "genuinely beautiful hymn to marriage and enduring love."Some see the Harvest Moon album, which went multi-platinum in 1997, as a kind of an unofficial sequel to Young's Harvest album of 20 years earlier, noting the two discs even share many of the same guest musicians.The MoonMeanwhile, the moon is a big deal in the Neil Young oeuvre; lunar imagery show up in no fewer than 28 of his compositions."Before there was organized religion, there was the moon,” Young told Harp magazine back in 2005. “The Indians knew about the moon. Pagans followed the moon. I've followed it for as long as I can remember, and that's just my religion.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Here's a tune that has touched the hearts and minds of more than a hundred years' worth of Flood heroes.At the very start of the 20th century, it was one of the best-loved numbers in the repertoire of jazz legend Buddy Bolden down in the hot, dark streets of New Orleans.A couple decades later up in Memphis, W.C. Handy co-opted it, copyrighting a variation after he heard an old guy singing it in a railroad station.It was one of the first songs waxxed when the recording revolution began in the 1920s. Bessie Smith and a kid named Louis Armstrong had a huge hit with it in 1925.After that, it was recorded by … well, by everybody from Lula Jackson and Lonnie Johnson to Jack Teagarden and The Mills Brothers, from Kid Ory and Baby Dodds to Bunk Johnson and George Lewis.Country versions were done by The Texas Rangers, The Dixie Ramblers and by Riley Puckett, blues versions by Big Joe Turner and Josh White, straight-up jazz takes by Sidney Bechet and Billie Holiday, early rock and pop renditions by Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Nat “King” Cole, earnest folk treatments by Jean Ritchie and Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Dave Van Ronk.The Song's OriginsThe origins of “Careless Love” are obscure indeed, though it is thought to be essentially British, re-made in America with new stylistic influences. In the US, for instance, folklorist Vance Randolph collected a version in 1948 that he was told was learned in 1880.In Father of the Blues, W.C. Handy's 1941 autobiography, the composer acknowledged that the song he copyrighted as “Loveless Love” was “based on the ‘Careless Love' melody that I had played first in Bessemer (Ala.) in 1892 and that has since become popular all over the South.”Meanwhile, uh, What About the Murders? ...Handy's autobiography also introduced a curious twist when a notorious double-murder case glommed onto the “Careless Love” story.While living in Henderson, Ky., with his new wife, Elizabeth, “I was told that the words of ‘Careless Love' were based on a tragedy in a local family,” Hardy wrote, “and one night a gentleman of that city's tobacco-planter aristocracy requested our band to play and sing this folk melody.”The tragedy in question was the April 1895 shooting death of one Archibald Dixon Brown, who happened to be the 32-year-old son of Kentucky Gov. John Young Brown. Newspapers across the country reported the scandal, how the jealous husband of Archie's 28-year-old lover, Nellie Gordon, caught the two of them in a bedroom in a disreputable neighborhood in Louisville and shot each of them to death. Fulton Gordon was captured by police several blocks away, where he confessed to the murders. Soon balladeers were hard at work, singing the news.Our Take on the Tune“Man, I love those chords you found!” Joe Dobbs used to say whenever The Flood played “Careless Love.” It's true that the country version of the song Joe grew up hearing — with its simple I-IV-V structure — made for a pretty boring tune to solo on. That's why when The Flood started doing the tune a couple of decades ago, Charlie Bowen dug around to find what Joe like to call “those Nawlins chords,” the changes favored by early jazz bands when they performed the song.And since then, each iteration of the band over the years has found lots of space for ad-libbing in those roomy chords inherited from the song's sweet Dixieland roots. Just listen, for instance, to all the ideas that Sam St. Clair, Danny Cox and Randy Hamilton come up with in this latest rendition from last week's rehearsal.The FakebookOh, and by the way, if you'd like to pick along on this or other songs in The Flood catalog, visit the band's Fakebook section on its website.There you'll find chord charts for dozens of tunes in The Flood songbag, along with links to the band's renditions over the years. Click here to check it out. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Chatter is everywhere when the band gathers each week for rehearsal at the Bowen House. News, gossip, jokes. But the best conversations usually don't involve words at all.The Flood Zone — like most tight-knit groups of friends — has developed its own language. It is a shorthand in which a grin and a nod could mean, “Wow — great solo. Cool new stuff!” while a shrug and a chuckle could tell everyone, “Oops — sorry about that, guys. Coulda sworn I knew what key we're in!”But beyond gestures and facial expressions, the nouns and verbs of this wordless patter are notes and chords, rhythms and rests. This track from last week's practice session is a perfect example.Anatomy of a GrooveRegularly proclaiming rehearsal as the best night of the week, Charlie Bowen usually tries to help things along with his choice of the opening warmup tune of the evening. His selection this time was a jaunty old jazz standard.Immediately, Danny Cox responds. Listen closely and you might hear the grins sailing around the room as his band mates enjoy the guitarist's finding cool new twists in the nooks and crannies of the old familiar tune.Jack Nuckols is the first to pick up on it, and right away he answers with innovations of his own, accents with his snare and high-hat cymbals that give the song a fresh shuffle.Meanwhile, Randy Hamilton, whose solid bass line is the reliably rich and warm current under all the Flood repertoire, replies with a wink and nod — uh-huh — when asked if he'd that like a turn at the solos.The infectious joy of this frolic in the Floodisphere is summed up in Bowen's laughing out loud at himself when he grandly muffs the lyrics at one turn in the tune.The point of it all is that, as in the spoken world, the best musical conversationalists are those who also know how to listen.About the SongThe vehicle for this outing is Walter Donaldson's jazz classic “My Blue Heaven,” which was introduced to the world by Eddie Cantor in the Ziegfeld Follies back in 1927, a year before it was a hit for crooner Gene Austin who sold a whopping five million copies of his rendition.For the story behind this fascinating old tune, see our earlier Flood Watch report by clicking here.More from This Year?Finally, if you'd like to hear more of the musical conversations emanating from the Bowen House nowadays, check the 2024 edition of the Radio Floodango free music streaming service. Click here to dial in. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

When Elvis Presley recorded “Just Because” in 1954 in Memphis's Sun Studio, the 19-year-old rocker was revisiting a saucy novelty tune that was a monster hit five years earlier for a West Virginian known as “America's Polka King.”Accordionist Frankie Yankovic — a native of Davis, WV, in Tucker County who recorded more than 200 songs and sold 30 million records — had just returned to his new home in Cleveland after four years of Army service in World War II, eager to resume what would be his 70-year career as a musician.One night in the bar he operated, Yankovic visited with an old war buddy, polka pal Johnny Pecon, who played the tune for him, a song that Pecon had picked in the Pacific while serving with the Seabees. What Pecon described as an old country and western number, “Just Because” had been written by Texas's Shelton Brothers, Bob and Joe, in 1929 and released by their band a few years later by Decca Records.Another version of the song was done in 1935 by Les Paul, the guitar great who still called himself “Rhubarb Red” in those days before hitting it big in the 1950s.Both the Shelton and Les Paul records flopped. But Yankovic liked the song's simple lyrics, which tell the story of a man breaking up with his gold-digging girlfriend. Frankie knew it would be easy for fans to learn the words. He asked Pecon and arranger Joe Trolli to create a polka-ish bridge for the song. Soon “Just Because” was a big hit with the folks who came to Yankovic's dance gigs in Cleveland.Yankovic Stands Up to ColumbiaA few years later, when he signed a contract with the Columbia — the recording company he would work with for the next 26 years — Yankovic wanted to record “Just Because” on the B side of his “That Night in May.” However, he ran into resistance.“Why go again with that turkey?” said the Columbia executive in charge of the session. Yankovic pushed back, telling him how popular it was with his audiences back home. When the exec wouldn't budge, the two got into a shouting match. Columbia's new polka star threw sheet music on the floor and kicked a chair.“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get through to this guy,” Yankovic recalled years later. “Finally, I said, 'Look, I'll make a deal with you. I'll buy the first 10,000 records myself.' I knew I could sell them off the bandstand. That convinced him. Columbia wasn't taking the chance anymore; I was. He gave us the go-ahead.”Even in Boston…You know what they say about the rest of the story: pure history. His “Just Because” skyrocketed in the late 1940s.For instance, in Boston — not actually known as a polka town — disc jockey Bob Clayton played the song on the air and within two minutes 60 phone callers requested an encore. Clayton played it six times that first day. By next week 25,000 copies of the disc were sold in Boston alone.Before long, sales of the record hit the million mark. Eventually it sold about two million, including reissues.Bash Fun from ‘81Now flash forward 30 years or so. In the Floodisphere, the song always conjures up memories of a hot, sweet night in the fall of 1981 when The Samples Brothers (Mack, Ted and Roger) brought down the house at a Bowen Bash. Here's that moment in a clip from the band's Bowen Bashes legacy film series:As you'll hear, the brothers are joined by Mack's long-time buddy, guitarist Frank Beal, who takes the first solo, leading to six-string replies by both Ted and Rog. Also on the bandstand is Flood kazoo guru Dave Peyton and his latest creation at the time, “Wallace the Washboard.”(Incidentally, the occasion of this recording was the last of nearly a decade of “Bowen Bash” music parties. A 90-minute tribute to that final Bash go-round can be viewed for free on YouTube by clicking right here.)Meanwhile, 30 years later, the Samples Brothers were still doing their rocking version of “Just Because,” as demonstrated in this Flood Watch report about a gathering at Tammy and Roger Samples' Mount Sterling, Ky., house in Janaury 2011.Our Take on the TuneAs you can tell, this wonderfully zany old tune from the late Roarin' Twenties is a song in search of a comedy routine, and in this track from last week's rehearsal, The Flood certainly tries to do its part. Right from the start, Danny Cox adds guitar accents that would be at home in a Spike Jones arrangement, then Jack Nuckols switches from his usual cool brushes and snare to those funky old wooden spoons, and suddenly the joint is jumpin'. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Rehearsals are not parties. They can be fun and satisfying, but the bottom line is that rehearsals are work sessions. The Flood is always trying to learn new songs, and since that's where the songs are worked out, some rehearsals are just more fun than others. So the band usually try to end the evening on a high note. At one such rehearsal recently, Charlie Bowen asked if anybody had a tune in mind to end with. “How about something we know?” said Danny Cox with a chuckle and a grin. In a minute the band had rolled into the 1930s standard “Moonglow” and it turned into the best moment of the whole night.The Song HistoryAs reported here earlier, "Moonglow" was first recorded by Joe Venuti in 1933, with subsequent recordings by Benny Goodman and Ethel Waters.Penned by Eddie DeLange and Will Hudson, the tune has since become a jazz standard, performed and recorded numerous times by a wide array of musical talents.The Jazz Discography estimates that by 2016, the song had been recored 572 times, including in studio sessions, unreleased masters, live performances and radio transcriptions.For more about the song's creation and its history, click here.Finding Other TunesBy the way, if you have a specific tune you like to hear Floodified, drop by the Song Index on the band's web site. More than 700 weekly episodes of the Flood podcast since its launch in late 2008 are linked from there.On the page, you can browse the alphabetized list and click on the underlined date on the song you want to hear; then on the subsequent page, click on the title of the song and the audio will start.A few words about the Song Index's organization:* The first of the links with a specific tune is always the most recent performance, followed by earlier renditions. * Most of the links connect to audio, though some are to videos of performances, which are indicated with the *v designation. * Occasionally links lead to audio or video of multiple songs; in that case, a time designation (such as "08:22") indicates where your selected song begins.* Some songs also include a “Flood Watch” and/or a “Story” reference. Clicking either of those links takes you to further information about the tune, perhaps a Flood Watch newsletter article about the song's history or maybe just a brief comment or discussion about it recorded at a jam session, rehearsal or performance. Click here to reach the web site's Song Index. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Some songs have very deep roots in the Floodisphere. For instance, the late Joe Dobbs loved this song. In fact, we can remember Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen jamming on this one with Joe and his brother Dennis at their Fret ‘n Fiddle music shop in its original Huntington West 14th Street location in the mid-1970s. (The song might even have been in the set list when the four opened for Little Jimmy Dickens' concert at the old Memorial Field House in 1977.)The tune also was the first song that the great Doug Chaffin played with us when we met up with him at a Nancy McClellan New Year's Eve party a quarter of a century ago. And Sam St. Clair still talks about Chuck Romine loving that melody; oh, how Doctor Jazz could tear it up on his tenor banjo.These days Sam and Charlie have introduced the song to a whole new generation of Floodsters. Just listen to Randy Hamilton and Danny Cox and Jack Nuckols rocking on “Somebody Stole My Gal!”About the Song“Somebody Stole My Gal” already was an old-timer by the time it reached Floodlandia.Written in 1918 by San Francisco songwriter Leo Wood, the song was first recorded by Ted Weems and His Orchestra. In 1924, that group's version sold a million copies and spent a full five weeks at No. 1 on the charts in The Roarin' Twenties.Over the decades, the song also has been recorded by so many of our heroes, folks like Bix Beiderbecke (1928), Cab Calloway (1931), Fats Waller (1935), both Count Basie and Benny Goodman (1940), Johnny Ray (1952) and Jim Kweskin (1965).In the MoviesThe song has even gotten its share of screen time, starting in a cartoon of all things in 1931 from Fleischer Studios, the famed creators of Betty Boop and Koko the Clown.Its best known Big Screen moments, though, were in Peter O'Toole's 1982 comedy My Favorite Year, in the Sissy Spacek-Piper Laurie comedy The Grass Harp in 1995 and in the 2004 epic bio-pic The Aviator about Howard Hughes, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.On a Flood AlbumWhen The Flood went into the studio in November 2002, this was one of the song the guys recorded for the album to be released as The 1937 Flood Plays Up a Storm. Just listen to Joe, Chuck and Doug rocking the introduction. (Oh, and how we love hearing Joe's comment midway through Romine's solo: “Sounds like New Orleans!…)Nowadays you can hear that disc — and all the other Flood albums — for free on the Floodango music streaming service. Click here to give the album a spin.More History?Finally, if you'd like more history on the tunes we play, check out Flood Watch's ever-growing Song Stories section.Click here to start your browsing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Andy Van Slyke, Jay Randolph, John Costello and Danny Cox all join the show to share their memories of Whitey Herzog

 On this episode, Danny Cox, Vice President of Guest Experience at Breeze Airways, discusses the challenges airlines face in creating great passenger experiences. He emphasizes the need for airlines to let go of antiquated processes and mindsets and focus on. Danny shares how Breeze Airways is working to improve the airport experience and reduce stress for travelers. He also highlights the importance of partnerships and the impact they have on the overall guest experience. Plus, Danny discusses the role of leadership in guiding the team and fostering an empowerment mindset.Tune in to learn:What are airlines missing when it comes to great experiences?Making the airport experience easierWhy is it difficult to give control back to customers?How Breeze differentiates itself in the marketGuiding a customer service teamHard lessons in building a new business–How can you bring all your disconnected, enterprise data into Salesforce to deliver a 360-degree view of your customer? The answer is Data Cloud. With more than 200 implementations completed globally, the leading Salesforce experts from Professional Services can help you realize value quickly with Data Cloud. To learn more, visit salesforce.com/products/data to learn more.Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Our guests today are Cody Newton and Dr. Doug Cleveland. Cody Newton is a serial entrepreneur, having started or been involved in over 20 companies, including professional sports, franchising, direct sales, and the energy markets. He is dedicated to democratizing renewables, carbon credits, and recycling for home and business owners in his latest project with Carbon X Solutions. Dr. Douglas Cleveland is a trained Anesthesiologist from the University of Chicago with a Medical Economics Certificate from the Harvard Business School. Doug is also an entrepreneur with expertise in process and operational efficiencies and shares Cody's passion for the energy and renewables space and the impact it can have on the environment. I found this story fascinating, as two entrepreneurs with vastly different backgrounds saw the same problem and figured out a way to complement each other with their diverse approaches to business. They built a team and tackled a problem many experts said was impossible. This conversation will highlight the complexities and challenges of starting a new venture when everyone around you says it can't be done. If there is one thing I have learned from all these interviews, it is that entrepreneurs almost always have to defy the odds and many naysayers along the way to launch a product or service that is new, innovative, and world-changing.Learn more at www.CarbonXSolutions.com Show Notes:3:00 - Doug begins by sharing how he entered his entrepreneurial journey. He shares how he started out in med school to become an anesthesiologist and started practicing anesthesiology but became restless to do more and learn more.6:00 - Doug shares his background, where he got his various degrees, and where he completed his professional training.7:00 - Cody shares his background of growing up in a small farm town, embarking on getting a degree from Kansas State and pivoting to become an entrepreneur. 13:00 - Doug discusses breadth vs. depth in the medical field and how that translates to his entrepreneurial journey.Quote: “Riches are in niches.” 16:00 - Doug and Cody share some “key lessons” they learned early in their careers that would be valuable to young people starting out in their careers to help speed up their entrepreneurial journey. They share the 26:00 - Cody and Doug share how they discovered carbon credits and why they were led to participate in this “green movement” to help the environment, as well as businesses and homeowners participating in this movement.31:00 - Cody discusses the posture of his heart toward smaller and medium-sized businesses when involving them in this industry. He shares his goal to make this attainable for small and medium-sized companies to utilize this business opportunity. Quote: “We can expand this green revolution faster as we make it more accessible.”40:00 - Cody shares the story of how he found himself in the right spot at the right time to make a partnership and how this reflects the entrepreneurial experience of living intentionally in everyday life. Quote: “If you always plant seeds, the harvest will come over time.”“If you're passionate about something, the worst thing you can do is keep it inside.”42:00 - Doug chimes in and shares his story when meeting Cody and beginning their partnership.48:00 - Cody and Doug discuss the struggles and obstacles they have faced and had to overcome throughout their journey. They share what they have learned from that process.54:00 - Bob asks how they balanced seeking counsel and guidance while pursuing their goals when they may have been advised not to.Quote: “The experts don't always have the same vision that you do… take what they say with a grain of salt.”59:00 - Doug and Cody share what they foresee the next 3-5 years to look like for this industry and talk about what they hope to accomplish in these future opportunities. 1:07:00 - Bob asks Doug and Cody to share their favorite books“Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown, “The Obstacle Is The Way” by Ryan Holiday, “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, “Intentional Living” by John C. Maxwell, “Seize The Day” by Danny Cox, “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson, “Carbon Trade” by James Prosper, “The Captain Class” by Sam Walker, and “The Bomber Mafia” by Malcolm Gladwell1:15:00 - Bob asks Doug and Cody what words of encouragement they would give to a class of MBA students amidst the complexity of our current marketplace and what they would share to inspire them in their careers. 

 We've been doing this song for a very long time, and it's always different, depending on who's in the room. In this rendition from a rehearsal a few weeks ago, our man Danny Cox makes it special with his signature guitar stylings.

 The Flood has been doing versions of this song for decades. This rendition was the first song of the evening at a Flood rehearsal a few weeks ago. Riding on the infectious rhythm laid down by Randy Hamilton and Jack Nuckols and framing the solos by Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair, the number heralded a particularly fun evening at the Bowen house.

 This song took a very long road on its journey to Floodlandia. The first time it was played in our band room was more than a dozen years ago on a mellow autumn night when our friends Randy Hamilton and Paul Martin dropped in to jam with us. Now, neither was a member of The Flood yet — Randy would join the following year and Paul a few years after that — but their song was the hit of the evening. However, the tune never worked its way into the repertoire — until just recently. A couple of weeks ago, Danny Cox just happened to start picking the tune between songs on the night's practice list and the melody really jingled in our memories. After that, Dan and Randy got together to woodshed a little, working out an arrangement, and at last week's rehearsal they popped it on the rest of us. With joy, everybody joined in.

 “Sweet Georgia Brown” entered The Flood's repertoire soon after the band began in the 1970s and in the ensuing decades the tune has come back into the playlist again and again, serving as a sweet showcase for dozens of Flood soloists over the years. This latest rendition, recorded at a rehearsal just last week, has Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton, Sam St. Clair and Jack Nuckols all taking the tune for a spin.

 Here's a tune with some mighty deep roots in the Floodisphere. Two decades after our heroes, The Coasters, released this song in July 1957, The Flood started fiddling with it on another summer night. After that, though, it went to sleep again for, oh, a half century or so. Then not long ago, it popped back into our minds. Right away, Randy Hamilton started singing harmony on the chorus. Suddenly the song is back, evolving into a fine vehicle for Jack Nuckols' cool drumming and tasty solos by Danny Cox and everyone else in the room. Even visiting pickers. For instance, on this track, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin dropped in with his mandolin. Just listen to how slowly he jumped right into the mix!

  Ever since it came together decades ago, The Flood has always sought a rich diversity in its repertoire. So late last year when Danny Cox asked, “Has the band ever done the song ‘Sunny'?” he heard an invitation in the enthusiasm of the answer: “no.” So, Danny worked out the chords, Jack took up the rhythm, we turned the vocals over to Randy, and suddenly the song is in the works. In fact, it's even picking up fans among the visitors. On this particular track, for instance, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin happened to be in the room and happily took a ride on one of the choruses. Here's the progress report, then, on Project Sunny.

 Okay, we have a Christmas confession to make. Honestly, we don't really care that much for Christmas music. Oh, we're not scrooges or anything — well, a few of us are — but it's mainly it's just the nature of Christmas songs themselves. The chord patterns are not especially easy to remember and since you only them for a week or two every year, you don't ever get a chance to get cozy with them. Plus, well, frankly Christmas tunes generally don't swing. (Try to put a beat behind “Little Town of Bethlehem” and there will be repercussions….) But here's one that does fit the Flood groove nice, especially with the merriest of our merry band — Danny Cox and Floodster Emeritus Michelle Hoge — leading the way. We hope you DO have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Ching ching etc - it's the Soho Bites Christmas special.Having just left behind the wholesome world of Jessie Matthews and 1930s musicals, it feels right to descend into the grubby underbelly of Soho with the festive fiasco, Don't Open 'til Christmas. The "plot" such as it is, is a basic one. A crazed serial killer is roaming the west end murdering men dressed as Santa Claus. If there's a worse Christmas film (not including anything by Hallmark) we'd be very interested to hear about them.Written, produced & directed by a rotating motley crew of exploitation regulars, the film apparently took two years to make which is possibly the most shocking thing about it.Our guest for this episode is the magnificent David McGillivray who has not only written about this film in the past but also knew many of the people involved.David's Twitter and his IMDB listing.Buy David's books, Doing Rude Things and Little Did You Know.Thanks to Danny Cox for the countdown of festive Santa murders.If you really want to see Don't Open 'til Christmas, you can find it on YouTube.Thank you for listening.Follow us on Twitter (or X - whatever)If Musk starts charging, find us on our new Threads feedEmail us at sohobitespodcast@gmail.comWe'd love it if you left us a lovely REVIEW.And if you'd like to help support the show we'd be very grateful.Check out our spin-off series Mural Morsels

When Danny Cox suffered embarrassment over growing up in the projects, he swore to himself he would never be poor as an adult. But his journey toward fame and fortune led him down a dangerous path of partying, drugs, and eventually, prison. Find out what happens when a letter from home reminds him of the hope that is available. Join us, won't you? For Part 1 of Danny's true story, right now on UNSHACKLED! Visit our podcast website to learn more about this ministry, unshackledpodcast.org.

When Danny Cox gave his life to Christ as he awaited his conviction, he couldn't wait to get out of jail and start living like a new man! But when a discouraging prison sentence and a terminal illness changed his plans, he had to surrender to God in a whole new way. Join us, won't you? So you don't miss the conclusion of Danny's compelling story, right now on UNSHACKLED! Visit our podcast website to learn more about this ministry, unshackledpodcast.org.

 Wow, Jack Nuckols' drumming has brought a whole new class of cool to the old band room. Whether it's his tasty solos, or rocking along with Randy Hamilton's bass under Charlie Bowen's vocals, or making his wise and witty contributions to the ensemble supporting Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair's solos, Jack's rhythms have got us all wanting to get up and dance. Just listen to what he brings to this old hokum song from the late 1920s.

 This song has marvelous lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer, as Floodster Emerita Michelle Hoge demonstrates whenever she's in the room. But she's not here to sing it, the song also is an extraordinary vehicle as an instrumental. Here from last week's rehearsal, Danny Cox lays down a lovely melody, then his old friend and our guest for the evening — Bob Murnahan, in town for a visit from his Colorado home — takes a couple of choruses to mine gold in all those cool chords.

For this old folk song, we follow the well-established narrative about a love affair that goes tragically wrong, but we take a lot of liberties with the traditional melody. Well, our unique tune goes back the very beginnings of The Flood. When Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen were just starting out as a duet a half century ago, they found that odd string of chords seem to set just right with their simple guitar and Autoharp accompaniment. Since then over the years, every configuration of The Flood has found something new to add to that basic original arrangement. And it's still happening. Just listen to this take from last week's Flood rehearsal and to what Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair have contributed with their solos. 

 This song has been in The Flood's repertoire for about 30 years now. Early on, it was an instrumental showcase for Joe Dobbs' fiddle. Then about a decade or so, it was part of Michelle Hoge's remarkable songbag of ballads and swing tunes. Lately, Randy Hamilton has taken over the lead vocals. On this track from last week's rehearsal, Charlie Bowen brings a little harmony and Danny Cox finds all kinds of interesting opportunities for guitar goodies in those cool old chords.

Roger Samples and Charlie Bowen worked out our arrangement of this old tune about 50 years ago. We sang and played it at many parties and jam sessions, but then it remained retired for the next three or four decades. That is until one night this summer when the tune popped into Charlie's mind during a weekly rehearsal. Right away, Danny Cox, Randy Hamilton and Sam St. Clair jumped in and gave new life to an old number.

 The Flood started playing this tune a quarter of a century ago, and it's had a wide variety of arrangements over the years. In this latest version, Randy Hamilton is doing double duty. Not only does Randy take over the vocals, but his sweet, soulful bass lines set the mood for the whole thing, inspiring equally introspective solos by Sam St. Clair and Danny Cox. Here's “Summertime,” 2023.

 Danny Cox learned his version of the song from a recording by his hero Chet Atkins on his 1965 More of That Guitar Country album. This is a Flood track recorded at a recent gig at Sal's Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky. Here you'll hear Dan and harmonicat Sam St. Clair trading choruses on the tune as we call folks back to the bandstand to begin our second set

Great Britain – hey, The Beatles are from there – gave the United States a tougher time than expected, stunned Colombia, and ended its World Baseball Classic run in the wee hours of this morning by giving Mexico one hell of a scare before ultimately falling, 2-1, in Phoenix, where it was still late last night. (These are East Coast-written show notes, today in an insomniac fit at 3 a.m., if you're curious, as opposed to the usual break-into-the-day-between-coffee-and-work sweet spot for little Sports-Reference rabbit holes. Further updates to the writing schedule may or may not be given.)Trayce Thompson (who has a birthday today, but that's coincidental – these show notes will not be a birthday repository, but they will be mentioned and played up when the mood strikes) played for Great Britain, which was kind of weird because, you know, his brother Klay has kind of won an Olympic gold medal playing basketball for the United States. And Trayce was born in Los Angeles, because his and Klay's dad, Mychal Thompson, played for the Showtime Lakers. Mychal was born in The Bahamas, which… qualifies players for Great Britain, because Commonwealth or something?Sports citizenship is weird like that. Imagine if Trayce Thompson was a soccer player. The United States, his home country, has a team. The Bahamas, his father's birth country (Mychal moved to Miami for high school in the 1970s), has a team. Great Britain, the current athletic home country for Trayce, does not have a soccer team. Except in the Olympics. But Trayce Thompson is not under 23, and therefore wouldn't be part of an Olympic men's soccer team.If Great Britain did have to break up its baseball operations, because obviously they're getting too powerful, history says that Scotland would be the team to watch, what with the Glasgow roots of the best pitcher and hitter (by WAR) to come from the UK (Harry Wright is in the Hall of Fame, but as a pioneer — dude's roots were in cricket, including dropping out of school at 14 to play for a pro cricket team called the Harlem Dragonslayers — yes, the Harlem in New York — with his father). Jim McCormick, the Cleveland Blues pitcher who was either the first or second 40-game loser in major league history, because we don't have the day-by-days for the 1879 National League.That's a rude way to introduce McCormick, who was the 1880 National League wins leader with 45 — with a league-high 72 complete games and 657.2 innings pitched — and the 1883 ERA champion at 1.84, but he and George Bradley, that year with the Troy Trojans, tied for the nascent National League's lead in defeats, a mark that's only been surpassed three times – all in the subsequent five seasons, with John Coleman setting the record (also the hits allowed record, with 772… nobody else has been above 700) by going 12-48 for the Philadelphia Quakers, who won only five other games in their inaugural season… but now are the defending champions of the league, 140 years later under a different name (“Phillies?”), so guess it worked out alright for them, and for Coleman, who became an outfielder for the rest of the 1880s.The best British hitter and McCormick's fellow Glaswegian? Also a Thompson. Wait, no, not a Thompson. Bobby Thomson.Liverpool? They've only given us Tom Brown and Ned Crompton, and you've never heard of them before, and you won't now, because this bonus space is where we shout out Danny Cox, the pride and joy of Northampton, England, and Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Alabama. Not just because he's the only good British-born player, ever, who has highlights in color, but because he taught me a change-up grip in the elevator of my building as my dad and I came in from a catch in 1989, when it seemed like his career was over before a really nice comeback that included getting a World Series ring with the 1993 Blue Jays (and got off the hook for the loss in Game 6 — the Blue Jays had a 5-1 lead at the start of the seventh inning, Dave Stewart gave up a three-run homer to Lenny Dykstra; Cox came in and only retired one of the five batters he faced; Pete Incaviglia hit a sacrifice fly off Al Leiter to give the Phillies the lead; yes, that was just an excuse to mention Dykstra and Incaviglia — thanks to Joe Carter's homer).Okay, that wasn't really a highlight for Cox, even if the ring's the thing. So, here are a couple, as promised, in full color.And despite being a pitcher, Cox has as many career postseason runs batted in as Mike Trout. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willetspen.substack.com/subscribe

 The Flood has been doing versions of this great old song from its earliest days nearly a half century ago. Literally. It was the first song that the late Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen tried at a New Year's Eve party in 1973 where the band was born. The tune has come back in every iteration of The Flood and it has never sounded better than this latest version, with Danny Cox and Sam St. Clair double-dipping on the solos and Randy Hamilton singing all that rock-solid harmony. Here's “Solid Gone.”

Table Talks 1 - Kensington Church Podcast | With Danny Cox by Kensington Church Media

Power of a Story 2 - Kensington Church Podcast | With Danny Cox by Kensington Church Media

Light of the World - Kensington Church Podcast | With Danny Cox by Kensington Church Media

With the slogan "Seriously Nice", Breeze Airways is reimagining customer service for brands and businesses to be the best part of a customer's day. So, what does it look like to be Seriously Nice? In this episode, Vice President of Guest Experiences, Danny Cox shares what it means to be Seriously Nice, how they raise the bar for guest experiences, and why they decided to omit voice as a primary channel for customer service.

Spend a few minutes with industry insider and automotive finance professional, Danny Cox from The Auto Consultants as he breaks down the fundamentals of how to attract, recruit, train, and retain employees in today's difficult job market. You'll also hear how to grow your dealership by attracting customers in the midst of rising inflation and shrinking inventories. Join your host, Bryan Haakenson as he interviews Danny and draws out the information you need to hear.

When Danny Cox gave his life to Christ as he awaited his conviction, he was eager to get out of jail and start living like a new man! But when a discouraging prison sentence and a terminal illness changed his plans, he had to surrender to God in a whole new way. Don't miss the conclusion of Danny's compelling story, right now on UNSHACKLED!

When Danny Cox suffered embarrassment over growing up in the projects, he swore to himself he would never be poor as an adult. But his journey toward fame and fortune led him down a dangerous path to partying, drugs, and eventually, prison. Find out what happens when a letter from home reminds him of the hope that is available, in Part 1 of his true story, right now on UNSHACKLED!