Jay C. Flippen was a White vaudeville performer of the 1920s. He sometimes performed minstrel material in blackface makeup. His records have a lot in common with those of Pathé label mates, Cliff Edwards and Annette Hanshaw. Similar back-up groups were used on all of these performers' records. The personnel of these bands featured members of Red Nichols Five Pennies and the California Ramblers. Flippen often inserted the phrase of "turn it over" at the end of a record much like Annette Hanshaw's gimmick of saying "that's all" at the end of her songs. At one time he was also a radio announcer for New York Yankees games and was one of the first game show announcers. Between 1924 and 1929, Flippen recorded more than thirty songs for Columbia, Perfect and Brunswick. Subsequently, he switched to an acting career. He was cast as a character actor who often played police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s and 1950s. His first film, the 1928 Warner Bros. short subject "The Ham What Am", captures his vaudeville performance, and there are other shorts in the 1930s, but his film career started in earnest in 1947. Flippen also appeared on television. Later in life, Flippen continued acting although he used a wheelchair after an amputation. He was married for 25 years to screenwriter Ruth Brooks Flippen. As for the present recording, it was made in 1926. It should be noted I could not mention the entire credits of the accompanying band because the filters wouldn't let me upload it. Apparently one word made the filter flip (pun intended).
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Music