Biography
Forming a prominent radio ensemble from West Virginia throughout the 1930s, the act brought together Cap, born Samuel Warren Caplinger on 16 June 1889 near Kanawha Station in Wood County, West Virginia, and deceased on 7 July 1957, on guitar; Andy, born Andrew Patterson on 28 August 1893 in Petros, Tennessee, and deceased on 19 November 1950, handling fiddle, guitar, and vocals; and Flip, born William Austin Strickland on 28 November 1908 in Blount County, Alabama, and deceased on 21 July 1988, on banjo, mandolin, and tenor vocals. Before settling in Tennessee and encountering Andy there, Cap had earned his living as a miner. The pair assembled a string band in 1928 alongside George Rainey and his two sons, then traveled to Ashland, Kentucky, where, performing as Warren Caplinger’s Cumberland Mountain Entertainers, they cut nine sides for Brunswick Records and Vocalion Records. Cap soon moved on to Akron, Ohio. Andy completed additional sessions for Columbia Records alongside the McCartt Brothers before returning to Cap’s side in Akron to establish the Dixie Harmonizers. The duo secured steady radio slots in both Akron and Cleveland while cutting further material for Gennett; they also appeared, under the Pine Ridge String Band name, with Lum And Abner on a Cleveland network broadcast during which a young Grandpa Jones, still at the outset of his career, performed as a band member. The trio launched its highly successful radio run in 1930 once Flip, already experienced in broadcasting, completed the lineup. Throughout the decade the group drew large audiences not only in Akron and Columbus, Ohio, but also over West Virginia and Kentucky outlets such as WWVA Wheeling, WMMN Fairmont, and WCHS Charleston. Several songbooks appeared during this peak period, although the musicians showed scant interest in further discs; an exception came in 1939/40 when they recorded nine sides for the Fireside Melodies label that remain unissued. Additional mid-1940s sessions for a local company were apparently lost. The act earned lasting recognition as the first to bring “Roane County Prison” to wide attention. By the time Flip departed in 1940 the ensemble operated out of Charleston and concentrated chiefly on gospel material. Milt Strickland, Flip’s sixteen-year-old son, then stepped in with Cap and Andy, and the unit persisted until Andy’s declining health forced its dissolution in 1949. Patterson settled in Harriman, Tennessee, while Cap took work as a disc jockey on Charleston stations. Andy passed away in 1950 and was interred at St. Albans, West Virginia; Cap, who died in 1957, was laid to rest near his former partner. During the early 1940s Flip collaborated with Curly Fox And Texas Ruby on the Grand Ole Opry before moving to Indiana, where he performed with various ensembles into the 1970s. He retired to his native Alabama in 1979 and died in 1988, buried in Gallipolis, Ohio, his wife’s hometown.