Bob Dylan wrote this during the Basement Tapes sessions in 1967 and has recorded it three times (none are available on YouTube, which Dylan’s people police pretty closely). None of his renditions packed the punch Derek Trucks gave the song on his 2009 album “Already Free.” Trucks said he chose the tune because “I figured after Katrina and the flooding in Iowa, the title and the lyrics were just a great metaphor for all that.” He’s gone on to play it frequently in concert with the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Trucks and singer Mike Mattison give the song a menacing edge befitting the apocalyptic lyrics.
The Basement Tapes version is a rough sketch, its music rather lighthearted. Because the song was quickly covered by several artists, most prominently Sandy Denny, Dylan chose to include it on Volume II of his “Greatest Hits,” and he rerecorded it with guitarist Happy Traum. He then retired the song until 1995, when he redid the music in a tougher blues style, captured here in a 2000 concert.
The Band covered many of the tunes on the Basement Tapes, some of them overshadowing Dylan’s versions. But they only played “Down in the Flood” once in concert, at their 1971 New Year’s Eve concert at the New York Academy of Music (it was actually played just after midnight on Jan. 1). That performance was included on the expanded edition of “Rock of Ages.”
