Joe Flood

Joe Flood plays multiple instruments, sings, and writes songs as a longtime participant in the downtown New York City roots-rock circuit that energized clubs including the Ludlow Street Cafe, Nightingale, and Rodeo Bar during the 1980s and launched groups such as the World Famous Blue Jays, Blue Chieftains, and Five Chinese Brothers. Both his instrumental work and vocals directly extend the layered rock-blues-country-folk approach pioneered by the Band, whose members have themselves recorded his compositions, as have the Bottle Rockets and Diesel Only labelmate Laura Cantrell on the track “Pile of Woe” from her album Not the Tremblin’ Kind. He has also appeared on records by Kelly Willis, the Bottle Rockets, and Mojo Nixon.

Through his band Mumbo Gumbo, Flood issued two vinyl singles on the Brooklyn-based Diesel Only imprint in 1991 and added a solo cut to one of the label’s Rig Rock compilations. His independently produced and distributed solo album Hotel Albert came out in 1997. July 2001 brought his first full-length Diesel Only release, Cripplin’ Crutch, produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel—whose credits already included the Bottle Rockets, Blue Mountain, and Mojo Nixon—and featuring guitarist Ambel plus drummer Will Rigby, formerly of the dB’s, who together comprise half of Steve Earle’s touring group the Dukes.