BENTON FLIPPEN
BENTON FLIPPEN
(July 18, 1920– June 28, 2011)
James Benton Flippen(July 18, 1920– June 28, 2011) was an old-time fiddler from Mount Airy, North Carolina. He was one of the last surviving members of a generation of performers born in the early 20th century playing in the Round Peak style centering on Surry County, North Carolina. His contemporaries included Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Earnest East.
Flippen learned to play old-time music early in life from his father, uncles, and brothers. He composed several original tunes and performed with the Camp Creek Boys and the Smokey Valley Boys.
Flippen was a recipient of theNorth Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1990.
Flippen gained popularity among the old-time music community for his unique approach to fiddling. Having rather large hands, he discovered the best way to get around the neck was to slide his index and middle fingers, rather than fingering up and down the scale with all four fingers as most people do— including his mentor, Esker Hutchins. On some tunes, he slid up the neck with one finger as he nearly simultaneously slid down with another. Where most fiddlers make a “D” chord on the neck with the index and ring finger, Flippen did it with index and middle finger. His bowing was described as smooth and heavily shuffled, having been perfected over many years of playing for square dances. As Paul Brown describes in the liner notes to Old Time, New Times, “It cries the blues, shouts a spiritual message, resounds with the celebration of a square dance or house party. It’s full of syncopation and stretch, yet solidly down-to-earth.”
Flippen also had a unique two-finger banjo style. He said he found it difficult to play clawhammer banjo, and though he liked hearing it, the three-finger bluegrass style wasn’t quite for him, so he came up with his own heavily syncopated two-finger picking style that combined drive and charm.