Musical Director of the Mountain Goat Radio Show 

The musical director of the SCCS's Mountain Goat Radio Show, Merielle Flood, comes from a musical family. For as far back as she can trace it, everyone sang and played something. From a famous symphony conductor and composer, a mandolin-strumming romantic, a military band leader who fought in the Crimean war, a fiddle player who went West to entertain the gold miners, a backwoods woman who clawhammered the banjo on her shack porch, a guitar-strumming wandering country singer, a prolific composer of evangelical gospel songs;  to a brother-based garage band of rock-n-rollers, and a young composer of movie scores and electronica, nearly everyone in the family was involved somehow in music. 

 Her father played guitar, steel guitar, piano and trombone, and sang tenor in a Barbershop Quartet. Her mother plays piano, saxophone, sings beautiful soprano, and writes children's and devotional music. Her parents met in their college jazz band.  Merielle's sister, Victoria, has a gift for writing unique and haunting songs, and the two of them occasionally write songs together. Their mother relates the story of Merielle's first song, written at the age of three.

 Merielle remembers singing four-part harmony with her family. The girls studied piano starting at about age three and five. At the age of eight, Merielle chose the tuba in the elementary school band. She was named "Miss Bass" by her music teacher. She also sang in the church choir, sang duets and trios in church, and was in the children's chorus at school.

 Strings 

In the seventh grade, not wanting to play the sousaphone in a marching band, Merielle switched to the acoustic bass, joining the junior high orchestra.  Outside of school, she accompanied the church choir on upright bass.

 Merielle first picked up her father's steel guitar at age fifteen, not realizing that it was supposed to be played with a barre. The action was a little high! From the first song learned, she was into the old time and bluegrass repertoire. Her granny's favorite song was "Little Brown Jug."  Her grandfather's was "she Ride an Old Paint."  Her great-aunt's was "Golden Slippers," and her great-uncle's was "Amazing Grace." 

 Merielle received her own Spanish classical guitar for her sixteenth birthday. Many years were devoted to learning Spanish classical guitar. Whenever the opportunity arose, she listened in person to the wonderful classical and flamenco guitarists that visited her area: Andres Segovia, Narciso Yepes,  Juan Serrano, and The Romeros. She took classical guitar lessons when she was in high school, and, later, took flamenco guitar lessons from Joe Shepler in San Francisco. 

Though she focused on classical and flamenco guitar, she kept a hand in the American old time repertoire, and branched out into finger picked ragtime guitar and stride guitar. She tried to learn the fiddle and was given a few fiddle lessons with Jack Tuttle in Palo Alto, CA. When she got back into playing the acoustic bass, she gave herself one lesson with master acoustic bassist Todd Phillips in San Jose, CA.

 Performance 

During her college and graduate school years, music performance became an important break from her studies and an increasingly essential part of her life. She began singing and playing guitar in public for the first time at the jam sessions at a music store in Berkeley, CA.  She became a regular at the Pickin' Potlucks of the East Bay, and other regular jam sessions. Singing took on more significance when she joined the vocal harmony group, House Blend with singer/songwriters John Croizat, John Royer, and David Lehrer. She also brought her own songs to the group.

 At this time, Merielle assisted numerous other groups on the acoustic and electric bass. She also was a member of the groups Modern Radio, Tall in the Saddle, Girl Country, and The Blues Wizards and played bass with a variety of old time groups for contra and square dances. When she joined the bluegrass group, Dark Hollow, on acoustic bass, she moved over to bluegrass and old time country almost exclusively. The band performed weekly in San Francisco for five and a half years.  Members of the band were Alan Bond, mandolin; Larry Cohea, banjo; John Kornhauser, guitar; Mark Kronar, fiddle; and Merielle on acoustic bass and vocals.

 Outside of her musical interests, Merielle is an anthropologist, who has studied women's work and family roles in changing economic settings. She received her doctorate in social anthropology from Stanford University in 1988.  Merielle did fieldwork in Belgium on small family businesses, examining families who work together through the generations. She has also done research with Mayan women in Mexico, studying how women become involved in new occupations, and how they transform women's traditional work and crafts into new sources of income and personal pride. She has more recently done fieldwork on artists and musicians in Tennessee, helping to gather the information that is now included in the brochures Music Trails and Art Trails, published by Allied Arts of Chattanooga and the Southeast Tennessee Development District. She has taught social anthropology, museum methods, and tourism studies at the university level. She has also  worked for the California Attorney General in implementing a new consumer protection program, applying her education and research training for a broader sociocultural benefit. 

 New Home

 When she moved with her husband to Tennessee in 1998, she joined Down Yonder, an "old time country" band, led by two-finger frailing style banjo player, Don Sarrell. Down Yonder was the house band at the Mountain Opry in Chattanooga for over four years.  For two years, she served on the board of directors of the Mountain Opry. In this role, she accompanied and met many bluegrass and old time musicians in the Chattanooga and North Georgia/North Alabama area.

 She learned of the South Cumberland Cultural Society when it was first forming, through the original Music Director, Bob Townsend. She accompanied Bob in his bluegrass and old time bands on occasion. When Bob completed two years as Music Director of the Mountain Goat Radio Show, he asked Merielle to consider taking on this volunteer role, which she has done now for three years. 

 Merielle joined the bluegrass band, the Bac-TRAK'ers, in May, 2004, and played with this six-piece group for two and a half years on acoustic bass, as well as lead and harmony vocals. The band played frequently at bluegrass festivals in the South Cumberland area, and at the Burgess Family Pik-N-Barn and Ole Kitchin in Crossville, TN.

 Merielle's songwriting has been highlighted with the acoustic trio, Pickalittle, composed of Billy Sims on guitar and banjo, Gary Roark on guitar, and Merielle on guitar and bass.     

Music is a great enjoyment for Merielle. It has been her privilege to play with some of the best bluegrass and old time country musicians around at jam sessions at festivals both large and small. She has jam friends across the country, and loves to pick and grin at the meetings of the International Bluegrass Music Association and the Society for the Preservation of Blue Grass Music in America. She has been a member of the following bands:

 Pickalittle 2006 - present

Chattanooga, TN

Original and vintage country, original bluegrass and alt-country - bass, guitar & banjo.

 The Wore Outs 2004 - present

Chattanooga, TN

Traditional country, bluegrass, and alt country- bass, mandolin, guitar, & banjo.

 The Bac-TRAK'ers  2004 - 2006

Crossville, TN

Hard driving bluegrass, old time country, and original tunes - guitar, bass, fiddle, mandolin, dobro

 Down Yonder - 1998 - 2004

Chattanooga, TN

Old time, bluegrass, & old time country - bass, guitar, fiddle, banjo

 Dark Hollow - 1993 -1998

San Francisco, CA

Traditional and original bluegrass - bass, guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin

 Modern Radio - 1997 - 1998

San Francisco, CA

Swing band - bass, guitar, fiddle

 Tall in the Saddle - 1995 -1998

Oakland, CA

Honky-tonk country- electric bass, rhythm guitar, fiddle, lead guitar

 Girl Country - 1997

Oakland, CA

Three women singing vintage country.

 House Blend - 1990 - 1993

Oakland, CA

Original/ folk, doo-wop - acoustic bass, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, fiddle