Episode 187: David "Stringbean" Akeman (Part 1 of 2)

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The old Kentucky wonder strang Bean.
Hold that you get back on give him

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I'll do it every time I do
the song. Here, I have a

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fit and I feel want of coming
on right now. Hang on, children,

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you walk up to your due.
Can you slip and it go in?

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You can bet your bottom dollar when
that rick start, you spend your

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hairt fit, lading up sound and
that he'll be any feet. I should

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spend on around, beep around or
get around you and romping down. I'll

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be Robby Castle, storing, riding, slip bel around, He'll man.

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Hello and welcome to the Catch My
Killer Podcast. Thank you for listening.

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My name is Mark. For nearly
eight years, I've written a weekly newspaper

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column about true crimes and missing people
for the Claremont Sun newspaper in Ohio.

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With a column and podcast, it
has always been my objective to bring attention

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to those cases that have not received
much media attention, if any at all.

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This week's story involves the homicide of
David string Bean Akman and his wife

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is still. Stringbean was a country
music star from Kentucky who was a grand

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old opery legend from the time he
was a child. He had a love

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for the banjo and would become known
for his old fashioned banjo picking style of

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playing. He was one of the
earliest cast members of a family program called

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Keehaw. Unfortunately, string Bean's rising
star would be dimmed forever when two men

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viciously murdered him and his wife Estelle
By November tenth, nineteen seventy three.

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For string Being's story, I interviewed
author Taylor Heygood, who wrote a true

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crime book about string Being titled string
Being The Life and Murder of a Country

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music Legend. David Aikman, affectually
known as string Being, was born on

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June seventeenth, nineteen fifteen, to
a farm family in Annville, Kentucky.

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Based on twenty twenty census data,
Annville is a small town in Jackson County,

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Kentucky, with a population of just
over one thousand people. String Bean's

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love for music began at an early
age. Before he was even eight years

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old, he built his first instrument
of a shoe box and some thread that

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he got from his mother. He
most likely developed his early love for music

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from his father, who was a
successful banjo player who often played throughout the

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community. So string Being grew up
around musicians his entire life, so it

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was probably no surprise to anyone who
knew him that he would also grow up

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to become a popular musician. By
the time he was twelve, he had

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enough money to buy his own banjo. He then began playing at local dances

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and built a reputation as an excellent
banjo player. While working construction type jobs

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building roads and planning trees, he
continued playing his banjo with the goal of

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making it big in a music business. String Bean's career officially took off after

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he entered a contest being judged by
musician Asa Martin. After impressing Martin,

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he soon joined Martin's band. During
a performance, Martin had forgotten David Aikman's

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name, so he just simply introduced
Aikman as string Beans. The nickname was

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given to him based on his tall, lanky frame. Apparently, the name

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stuck, and David Aikman would soon
become known as string Bean. I would

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also like to add something about this
nickname. It's also been said that Aikman

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was introduced as string Beans plural,
so it's actually debatable whether Martin called him

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string Bean singular or string Beans plural
and not only did string Being become known

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for his musical abilities, he also
became known for being a pretty funny guy.

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String Bean became known as a comedian
musician. He also broadcast out of

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w Lap out of Lexington, Kentucky, and played with different groups during the

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nineteen thirties. Oddly enough, old
country music back in the thirties really didn't

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include much banjo playing. However,
string Bean was able to keep banjo playing

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relevant in country music when he played. In addition to being a musician,

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string Being truly was a man of
different talents. A lot of people may

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not realize it, but he was
also a decent semi pro baseball player.

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His baseball playing skills became known to
musician Bill Monroe, who had his own

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semi pro club. Monroe was so
impressed was string Bean that he added him

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to his band. String Being would
play in Monroe's band from nineteen forty three

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until nineteen forty five. After string
Bean left Monroe in nineteen forty five,

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he was replaced by another popular banjo
player named Earl Scruggs, who played a

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different style of banjo than string Bean. String Bean also would go on to

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marry his sweetheart, A still standfill
in nineteen forty five. The following year,

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he would then begin working with another
banjo player named Lewis Marshall Jones,

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affectionately known as Grandpa Jones. The
two men would get to Yeah, They're

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doing comedy in the television program Heehaw. Grandpa Jones was a World War Two

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veteran and would become string Bean's closest
friend, and the two men would also

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become neighbors in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
During the late nineteen forties, string Being

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also formed a team with lou Children
and became a regular performer at the Grand

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Old Opry. During string Bean's Grand
Old Opry days, he began wearing his

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night shirt and pants that made him
look like a tall man with tiny legs.

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He pretty much looked like a human
string Being playing a banjo. It's

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been said that string beans attire was
inspired by a comedian named Slim Miller.

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After World War Two, Uncle Dave
Macon, another Grand Old Opry legend,

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took string Being under his wing.
He helped string Being develop his ability to

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play songs and tell funny jokes.
Before Macon died, he gave string Being

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one of his prize banjos. During
the nineteen fifties, string Being became one

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of the Grand Old Opery's biggest stars. Although he had made a name for

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himself, he didn't sign with a
record label until the nineteen sixties, when

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he signed with the Star Day label. He had hits with songs Chewing Gum

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and I Wonder Where Wanda Went.
He recorded seven albums between nineteen sixty one.

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In nineteen seventy two, his first
album was titled Old Time Picking and

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Grinning was string Being, which was
released in nineteen sixty one. His music

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was considered folk stories with the taste
of comedy at the time. String Being

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and his buddy Grandpa Jones became the
two biggest old time banjo players of their

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era. In nineteen sixty nine,
a country style comedy would come to television.

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The program would be called Heehaw and
was on television from nineteen sixty nine

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to nineteen ninety three. The program
lasted for twenty six seasons and recorded six

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hundred and fifty five episodes, and
any popular country musician who was anybody appeared

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on the show. String Being and
Grandpa Jones would become a part of the

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original cast. String Being became an
instant hit with the fans. His tall,

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lanky body, goofy facial expressions,
and lovable personality made him a fan

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favorite. Coupled with Grandpa Jones,
he Hall was an immediate success. Even

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if you didn't like country music back
in the day, you could still enjoy

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watching Heahaw. I'm not a country
music fan by any stretch of the imagination,

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but I absolutely loved watching Heehaw with
my parents and grandparents when I was

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a child. Unfortunately, string Being
and his wife Estelle would be tragically murdered

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on November tenth, nineteen seventy three. After the couple had returned home from

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a performance at the Grand Old Opry, they walked in on a robbery by

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two men. String Being was shot
to death in front of his fireplace and

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his wife, a Stell, was
shot to death outside their home while trying

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to flee the burglars. It would
be Grandpa Jones who would find the bodies

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of his beloved friends the next day. Grandpa Jones had plans the pick string

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Being up the next day for a
plan hunting trip. As Grandpa Jones headed

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over to pick up string Bean,
he became concerned because he knew that string

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Being must start off every morning with
a cup of coffee next to a lit

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fireplace. When Grandpa didn't see any
smoke coming from string Bean's chimney, he

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knew something was wrong. Grandpa Jones
would learn the sad truth when he pulled

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up to his friend's cabin at twenty
three zero eight Baker Road near Ridgetop,

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Tennessee. According to author Taylor Haygood, string Bean in a Stell did not

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believe in using banks. Keep in
mind, if they were both around during

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the Great Depression, when many people
who had money in their banks lost at

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all, they just didn't trust the
banks. String Being was known to have

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kept thousands of dollars in cash laying
around his house, Grandpa Jones warning many

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times to not keep that much money
in the house. He had told string

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Being several times that one day,
keeping that much cash around the house would

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get him killed. When Grandpa found
the bodies of his murdered friends, he

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knew that day he had worried about
had finally come. The murders shocked Nashville

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residence. Who would kill string Being
in a Stell? The public and String

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Being's fellow country stars were enraged.
They demanded law enforcement capture and punish whoever

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killed string Being in a stell.
Law enforcement would eventually arrest and convict cousins

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John A. Brown and Marvin Douglas
Brown, both twenty three years old.

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For his book about string Being,
author Taylor Heygood interviewed one of the lead

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investigators in the case. He also
interviewed surviving members of string Bean's family and

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fellow musicians who knew string Being personally. He then compiled his findings into the

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book titled string Being The Life and
Murder of a Country Music Legend. This

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is the first half of a two
part story. Please be sure to listen

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to the conclusion next week. And
now on with this tragic story of David

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Aikman, effectually known as string Bean
and his wife Estelle Aikman, is told

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by author Taylor hey Good. Taylor, first of all, I would like

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to thank you so much for sharing
your research about David string Being Akman with

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me. Also, thank you for
sending me a copy of your book.

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I did read it and I enjoyed
it. So with that, let me

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start out with asking you how to
pronounce your last name. I don't want

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to butcher it is it haygood or
good. It's y good, Taylor very

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good, Okay, and thank you
for the clarification. So tell me about

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yourself and why you decided to write
a book about country music legend string being.

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My name is Taylor very Good,
and I am a professor. I

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wear a lot of hats, but
to my main thing is that I'm a

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professor at Florida Atlantic University, which
is in bulk of a town. But

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long before I was a professor,
I was very interested in old time country

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music. I always loved the music
of Jimmy Rogers and Hank Williams and people

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like that. And I was also
in the playing music, playing the guitar

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and the banjo and the piano and
that kind of thing, and particularly the

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banjo was just always interesting to me. And when I was a kid,

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I testored my mom and dad and
buying me a banjo from my birthday.

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It was a little harmony banjo from
Sears catalog and I was just captivated by

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this instrument. And I had also
managed to pester them into taking me to

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the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Originally from North Mississippi, Ripley on the

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Tennessee state line, Mississippi Tennessee state
line. My dad's folksed in Tennessee and

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did a lot of places, but
the home and the hometown. But anyway,

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we went to the Country Music Hall
of Fame, and there I saw

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a string beans banjo and I saw
this picture of him, and he had

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a very strange to dad in me. Had a very long torso and very

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short pants, a very short leg. But it was a costume that he

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had, and I thought, man, that's a strange looking guy. And

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I thought, okay. But anyway, I heard my mom and dad at

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the time talking about remembering his being
murdered about two years before I was born.

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But they were talking about that,
and so just filed the way in

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the back of my mind. And
then I grew up and became a professor

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and sing on the southern literatures of
the southern part of the United States and

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the culture and the music and so
forth. And anyway, I've been reading

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a lot of biogeason. I was
interested in biography and interested in true crime.

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I've been reading true crime. I've
been reading not just the cortessential true

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crime book, the sort of the
original You in Cold Blood, but others.

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And I was interested in history generally. So anyway, one day I

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was just looking on the phone in
a video of string being popped up,

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and I thought, how about to
read a book about them? And so

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that I went to try to find
one, and really wasn't one. The

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book written in nineteen seventy five,
two years after the murder, and it

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was about the investigation, but it
really didn't give you much about string Bean's

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life, which is so crucial to
the story in a way, the investigation,

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the murder, and all in the
trial that those are all separate from

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string Bean's life in some ways and
seemed that way, but in fact they

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take on their greatest power and meaning
in light of his life stories. So

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anyway, I just started doing the
work on that and said, well,

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I guess I'm going to be the
guy who writes this book. And that's

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how it happened. Now, when
you wrote your book, were you able

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to actually find any surviving family members
a string being and get to speak to

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any of them to get their insights
about him? Well? I did so,

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well, absolutely So some of the
people I got to speak with who

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knew it, you know, were
people who had worked with him. So

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Loretta Lynn, the country music saying
very helpful with the book. Paul Jones

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had passed away, but his son
was very helpful. Also, there's a

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country sing named Whipper and Bill Anderson, pretty big, legendary kind of guy.

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And so there were a number of
those people who helped out, and

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there were some family now string Being, didn't you know, by the time

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I got to do in this book, none of his siblings and obviously his

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parents were no longer alive, but
his nephew as a very nice gentleman,

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lives in Kentucky, and in fact, they do a string Being annual festals

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just this past weekend. His name
is Philip Bateman, and he was incredibly

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gen was credibly generous. And there
was some other nieces and nephews and so

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forth. But you know what,
at this point, I'm sorry to say,

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there aren't many people really to actually
new stream being. It's just a

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handful. And I was writing this
book, of course during the pandemic,

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and it turns out that people were
you know, i'd say it, you

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know, there were people who passed
away even before I could get to.

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One of the people I was going
to try to talk to was Roy Clark,

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and the banjo player who toured was
stream being early on, and I

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wasn't able a best way for me
did so those things happened, but I

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got some great stories, and probably
one of my favorite ones was Lulu Roman,

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who was one of the founding past
members of Heat Hall and stream Bean

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was on that with her, and
she didn't actually know what anything about country

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music when she got on the show. She knew like one She knew buck

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Owens basically, and she got on
the show and she didn't know who anybody

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was. And I asked her,
I said, what did you think when

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you saw this guy string Bean?
Oh, that long his costume with the

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long shirt and short pants, And
she said, Honey, I was on

206
00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:11.000
so much at LSD at that time
that I thought one of those creatures I've

207
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been seeing it become real. Well, well, that was quite as smart

208
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as I can remember watching he Hall
with my parents and grandparents when I was

209
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a kid. I was about four
years old when string Bean died, so

210
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by the time when he passed away, I wasn't really watching it then.

211
00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:34.319
I'm gonna say that I probably started
watching it back in the nineteen seventy five

212
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or nineteen seventy six so string Bean
was already gone by then, but I

213
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:47.599
do remember Roy Clark and Buck Owens
m And for me to like Keyhaw,

214
00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:52.440
that's really saying a lot because I'm
definitely not a country music fan. I

215
00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:56.240
really don't care for the modern music, but I did like the older music

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with Loretta Land and Johnny Ash.
You're right right, well, yeah,

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00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:07.640
Now regarding stream Being, I did
enjoy his music. As a matter of

218
00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:12.880
fact, I will still go on
YouTube and watch old videos of him from

219
00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:18.240
when he was on Heehaw, And
I think that he was really a very

220
00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:22.079
talented musician, and I thought that
he was especially funny too, especially for

221
00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:27.160
his time doing the music, and
comedy was really great, you know.

222
00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:33.359
And then him and Grandpa Jones together
on heehall was really great. He was

223
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:38.400
really a comic. Yeah, And
of course the clips of him and Grandpa

224
00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:42.759
Jones together are classic. I know
they were best friends in life, but

225
00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:48.880
they also had that chemistry together.
It was really great on Heehaw. Yeah,

226
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.119
they really did, and had a
very drass into humor. I think

227
00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:57.799
a really interesting thing about stream Being
and a really interesting thing to me about

228
00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:02.119
him, And you mentioned the Cash. Of course, Johnny Cash never goes

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00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:03.880
out of style. He was.
He did some folks he did. He

230
00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:07.079
was a rock and roll guys country, so he was a little bit of

231
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:10.000
everything. Stream Being was not that
guy, but in his own way.

232
00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:14.599
Stream Being he's sort of cool in
a very uncool way, you know what

233
00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.039
I mean, Like he's not you
know. But he was a guy who

234
00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:23.200
kind of really blasted over these decades
and remained relevant. And everybody who worked

235
00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:29.960
with him loved him. He was
somebody who was a great colleague, you

236
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.319
know, And that was part of
the thing. When he was murdered,

237
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it really hit people. He was
a real punch in the stomach. I

238
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had always thought the string Being seemed
like a really interesting guy. As a

239
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:45.079
matter of fact, I had read
a lot about him, and I had

240
00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:48.519
decided that I wanted to write a
column about him. I write this true

241
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crime column for this paper in Ohio, and I've been doing it for a

242
00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:56.920
while. But I just wanted to
write something about him. I guess I

243
00:19:56.960 --> 00:20:02.680
just wanted people to who had never
heard of him to maybe be curious enough

244
00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:07.039
to look him up and learn about
him, or look up some of his

245
00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:11.640
videos and listen to his music on
YouTube. Oh okay, and through that

246
00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:18.160
column. I believe that's how I
ended up getting in touch with your press

247
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:23.359
person, or actually they contacted me
because they must have read the article and

248
00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.079
thought that maybe that I might be
interested in speaking to you about your book,

249
00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:33.000
and they were right. When I
was contacted about it, I was

250
00:20:33.079 --> 00:20:37.359
definitely interested. So yeah, I
definitely wanted to talk to you when you're

251
00:20:37.359 --> 00:20:41.039
a publicity person contacted me. So
yeah. But from what I've read about

252
00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:47.000
him, I've read that string Being
was a pretty humble, normal guy and

253
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:49.799
he didn't have any kind of an
ego. It was almost as if he

254
00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:53.680
didn't even know he was famous.
Yeah, no, that's been true.

255
00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:57.200
And his wife lived in a little
bit of house little Nashville, and he

256
00:20:57.400 --> 00:21:02.680
was a tall guy, tall guy, and I'm not I'm on like five

257
00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:06.160
eight and a half, you know, but like going to that house.

258
00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:08.680
I visited the house, but the
owners, the current owners of credibly nice

259
00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:12.839
people. And going to that house, the eve of the house, it's

260
00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:18.440
just a tiny assist a few rooms, and the eaves of the house when

261
00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:22.200
you go up on the porch,
it almost hits me in the head to

262
00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:25.000
walk on to the porch. So
he would have had to been pretty far

263
00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:27.960
over just to get on there.
And I only mentioned that because it's a

264
00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:33.279
tiny little house and that's where he
lived in a lot of land, but

265
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:37.119
that's where these people lived here and
his wife, and they lived a very

266
00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:41.920
quiet life and they minded their own
business, and they were very humble.

267
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.799
Yeah, and they were very frugal. I don't know about you. My

268
00:21:44.839 --> 00:21:48.000
grandmother used to after the Christmas shouldn't
be ironing the wrapping paper. You know.

269
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:51.960
She was very frugal. She had
become of age in the Great Great

270
00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:56.480
Depression, just a stream Being had
and they were very frugal people, and

271
00:21:56.519 --> 00:22:00.839
they didn't spend money. They would
buy, Yeah, they would trade him

272
00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:03.960
for a new catalac every year at
the beginning of the year, and that

273
00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:07.599
was their one splur. They had
a boat. They're a basketboat. Really.

274
00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:10.480
They weren't like George Jones or somebody
with a lot of stuff that.

275
00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:14.200
They weren't that person at all.
Nothing against George Jones, but they were

276
00:22:14.200 --> 00:22:18.440
a very different type of people.
Yeah, both string Being and his wife

277
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:22.440
Estelle, both sounded like very humble
people and very good people too. Yeah,

278
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:27.119
very string Being like the hunt he
liked to fish. He was just

279
00:22:27.160 --> 00:22:32.160
a normal guy. It wasn't like
the guy was taking yachts all over the

280
00:22:32.200 --> 00:22:37.200
place or living in a mansion,
or just seemed like a pretty normal,

281
00:22:37.319 --> 00:22:41.319
everyday guy just living his life.
That's right, it really was. It

282
00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:48.079
really was. While doing research for
string Being story, I had learned that

283
00:22:48.279 --> 00:22:52.000
he was truly a very humble man. He didn't take his fame too seriously,

284
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.640
and he just seemed to be happy
as long as he can entertain his

285
00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:02.200
fans with the sweet sounds of his
banjo playing, his goofy facial expressions,

286
00:23:02.839 --> 00:23:07.640
his lanky physical appearance, and his
corny jokes. We will take a short

287
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:12.599
break in return with details about string
Bean's early days as a young and upcoming

288
00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:33.440
musician from Kentucky. So tell me
about what it was like for string Being

289
00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:37.680
coming up. Because a lot of
people that will be listening to this will

290
00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:41.799
have never heard of string Being,
so they won't know anything about him,

291
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:47.880
and I would like them to be
curious enough to look him up and do

292
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.519
some research on him, or to
even purchase your book. So tell me

293
00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.559
more about how did he end up
becoming a musician? Tell me about his

294
00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:02.839
humble beginnings absolutely, and let me
tell you just to make a point I

295
00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:07.680
guess on routes to that. I
appreciate very much your research and writing,

296
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:11.559
and you know, I want to
say that in my mind, I tried

297
00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:15.200
to get his I put everything into
the book that I could find, But

298
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:19.079
I suspect there are probably stories out
there that I can't find at this point,

299
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.440
and there may be more things come
to light, and so it's my

300
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:27.519
hope that people will continue to do
the research and learn about him, because

301
00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:32.119
I think there's probably more out there, you know. But anyway, who

302
00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:34.839
was again, his name was David. Her name was David Eightman A K

303
00:24:36.119 --> 00:24:40.000
E M A N. The family
spend a little different ways, but that's

304
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.319
how he ended up spelling it the
way. He was from Jackson County,

305
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:49.440
Kentucky, which is kind of south
maybe a little bit southeast Lexington, kind

306
00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:53.039
of close to London, Kentucky,
And anyway, grew up there, grew

307
00:24:53.079 --> 00:24:59.599
up on a farm, and he
but that was a banjo player and stream

308
00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:03.480
being Dave Lateman learned to play Levan
Joe's as a kid, and then when

309
00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:07.480
he was, you know, get
to be young man, there was a

310
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:14.039
banjo contest held near him. He
sent by radio station in Lexington and he

311
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:18.160
competed in it. He did not
actually win that contest, but he made

312
00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:22.920
enough of an impression on the gentleman
the name Asa Martin, who was running

313
00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:26.880
the contest and was a radio personality, and Asa Martin invited him to play

314
00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:30.640
on the radio. He went to
Lexington, did David Akman, And when

315
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:36.200
he got there, Asa Martin was
famous for the kind of famously would forget

316
00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:41.200
people's names, and he couldn't remember
this guy's name that he had invited,

317
00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:44.000
and he said, well, he
looked at him and said, well,

318
00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:45.160
he's tall. He said, come
on over here, a stream bean and

319
00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:51.279
play us as all. He couldn't
think of his name. So now some

320
00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:55.480
people say Asa Martin said stream Bean, And in fact, a lot of

321
00:25:55.519 --> 00:25:59.839
times, especially earlier in his career, stream being or Dave Aateman was billed

322
00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:03.680
as in the plural for him stream
Beans, but I suspect it was probably

323
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:06.799
the singular because he looked quiet,
as you say. But anyway, that's

324
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.920
how he got his name, and
he started playing his playing with two three

325
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.680
different groups at least. And it's
another thing I'm kind of curious about it.

326
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:17.720
If there's anybody out there listening who
knows and you know, there may

327
00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:21.240
be other groups he was playing with. I was able to identify I think

328
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:25.480
to three during those early years,
but a lot of stuff is not documented

329
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:29.319
from that time. But anyway,
he was doing that. Then he got

330
00:26:29.359 --> 00:26:33.880
connected with Charlie Monroe. Of course, Charlie and Bill Monroe were big gleb

331
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:37.680
brothers and they had split up,
and then Bill Monroe really became the father

332
00:26:37.799 --> 00:26:41.039
of bluegrass music. And the fact
stream Being ended up not only playing with

333
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:47.759
Charlie, but ultimately he became the
first and people listening to anybody who knows

334
00:26:47.759 --> 00:26:52.079
about bluegrass music may be surprised to
hear that it was actually David string Being

335
00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:57.400
Eateman who was the first banjo player
with Bill Monroe, because a lot of

336
00:26:57.400 --> 00:27:03.799
people think about it being Earl Scrull
and Earl Scruggs replaced stream Being, so

337
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:08.240
that was David Eateman and left Streaming
left Building Rhodes. The team up with

338
00:27:08.519 --> 00:27:15.000
another singer named Luke Children and after
that this Eurol Scruggs came into the group.

339
00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.720
So really stream Being was an important
person in the history of bluegrass music

340
00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:25.519
because he was the first one to
really bring that banjo sound into it.

341
00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:29.839
He played a different style he played
he called a rapping style and most people

342
00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:33.799
call it climber style. And he
played two finger picking style, but both

343
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.079
of those are different from what Earl
Scrugs did, which is a free finger

344
00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:40.640
picking style. Anyway, that was
what he did, and he became part

345
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:44.119
of the Grand Old Opry ultimately as
a solo act, and over the years

346
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:48.160
he played there. By the night
Hank Williams debuted on the Grand Old Opry

347
00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:51.880
stream being was standing in the wings
and he played, I don't know one

348
00:27:51.960 --> 00:27:55.759
or two slots after him, he
was right there, so he was really

349
00:27:55.799 --> 00:28:00.200
there, and he really bridged those
early days, the really early days the

350
00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:04.000
country music and radio and all of
that all the way into the television era.

351
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.720
And ultimately, when he was murdered
in the nineteen seventy three, it

352
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:14.240
was right on the cusp of that
the you know that outlaw country music,

353
00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:18.200
and in fact, Willie Nelson it
wasn't his, one of the quintessential outlaw

354
00:28:18.319 --> 00:28:23.400
country singers. Lived very close to
string being in Enridged tut Tennessee's house burned

355
00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:27.960
down and he headed all back home
to Texas and that's where he started growing

356
00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:32.839
his hair out and became the Willie
Nelson. We know, and that's who

357
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:37.920
I guess, sort of a short
version of string Being's musical career. Okay,

358
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.279
now let's talk about heahaw. How
does string Being end up being on

359
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:47.119
Heahaw? Tell me about that?
So he how So it's kind of interesting.

360
00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:52.039
He wasn't necessarily in the original lineup
as they envisioned it. Of course.

361
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:55.799
He all was developed by a couple
of producers who are actually from Canada.

362
00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:59.440
They had been watching the show laugh
in and they said, we think

363
00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:03.599
we could do it a ton of
a rural version of this had rural TV

364
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:07.160
had come in. So you think
about the sixties, you know, you

365
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:10.400
had the fifties and sixties, you
had the Andy Griffiths showed, you had

366
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:15.079
Green Acres and I she got some
rural programming. Oh those were great shows,

367
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:18.279
Andy Griffiths, Green Acres. I
watched them all. Okay, you

368
00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:23.240
don't tell about Oh definitely. So
there was this rural all this rural programming

369
00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:27.400
have been doing pretty well, and
so these guys, well, can we

370
00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:33.359
do sort of a rural la version
of laughing basically, so it was a

371
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:37.079
popular show at the time, comedy
show. If he mayn't have been doing

372
00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:41.400
comedy from from early on. He
had didn't do it at almost from the

373
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:44.640
beginning, and he had a real
drive it. And anyway, so they

374
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:48.440
set up this show and they they're
real contact person was Buck Owens, who

375
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:56.519
was a West Coast guy. He
was he was based in California and he

376
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:00.559
so I think that kind of gave
a certain proximity for them. And anyway,

377
00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:03.759
they got him and they want to
do this thing, and they relied

378
00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:07.440
on him a lot to bring people
in. So they had certain people like

379
00:30:07.119 --> 00:30:12.799
Archie Campbell and many Pearl and Grandpaul
Jones were right there at the beginning.

380
00:30:12.839 --> 00:30:15.680
And then they kind of brought stream
Being. They said, listen, you

381
00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:19.039
gotta get because guy string Being in
on the deal, and that's how he

382
00:30:19.079 --> 00:30:22.279
came in there. They didn't really
know what to do with them. They

383
00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:26.559
can quite figure out what stream Being's
role should be. But then they hit

384
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:33.279
on the idea of making him the
scarecrow in the cornfield. So the cornfield,

385
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:36.839
as as I know, you remember, that's that place where they would

386
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:38.599
go and they would be telling these
jokes at half the time they would get

387
00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:45.319
them wrong and they'd cracked themselves up. But stream Bean was the scarecrow in

388
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:48.759
the cornfield, and that's how it
wasn't it? And he had such success

389
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.799
that he actually ended up writing a
song called Me and My Old Crow and

390
00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:55.519
he pat some money on it,
so that's how I got in it.

391
00:30:55.559 --> 00:31:00.200
And and then down the line he
introduced one of his acts from various it's

392
00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:03.640
at least the nineteen fifties, he
had been doing a thing where he would

393
00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:07.920
write these fake letters from home because
that were funny, and he would start

394
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:10.720
reading. He started reading those and
they said, couldn't do this, and

395
00:31:10.759 --> 00:31:12.759
they said, yeah, it doesn't
have to be a big hit, and

396
00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:17.039
he was really going strong. I
think one of the tragic things is the

397
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:22.400
final album he recorded was called Me
Mo Crowe, and it's a really interesting

398
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.039
album. I mean, some of
the approach to music that he was doing

399
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:30.079
really well. He was at his
best. Really. It would have been

400
00:31:30.119 --> 00:31:33.920
really interesting to see what kind of
music he might have produced it had lived,

401
00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:38.079
because they did old time music.
But he did like comic songs like

402
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:41.400
Me and Mo Crow. But you
know he did in that final album he

403
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:47.799
did a really interesting interpretation actually that
wantall Sally if they've got a little Richard

404
00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:52.079
doing that song extreme beings approach to
it is really original, it's really interesting.

405
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:56.039
So if he lived, it would
have been interesting. Oh, I

406
00:31:56.119 --> 00:32:01.720
definitely agree with you. I think
that had being lived longer, he would

407
00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:06.640
have gone on to become a huge
country star. I know he was already

408
00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:12.319
a big star in his own right, but he came in with the introduction

409
00:32:12.359 --> 00:32:16.440
of television, so he would have
been on television more. And then with

410
00:32:16.519 --> 00:32:22.319
him being on Heehaw, he probably
would have stayed on Heehaw a lot longer.

411
00:32:23.039 --> 00:32:29.279
So through Heehaw, I think that
because it ran for such a long

412
00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:37.799
time, that program would have probably
increased his exposure and he would have had

413
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:42.640
more fans from that show. He
probably would have just become a household name.

414
00:32:43.240 --> 00:32:47.839
But that's just my opinion. But
I think he was definitely a good

415
00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:54.599
enough musician that he would have probably
had a bigger impact on country music had

416
00:32:54.640 --> 00:33:01.519
he not been murdered. Absolutely totally
and he aged will. I hope he

417
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:06.240
and Grandpa Jones. You know,
Grandpa Jones had an ultimate This guy had

418
00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:09.839
the ultimate marketing plan. He was
twenty something years old when he started telling

419
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:15.680
himself, Grandpaul Jones, you're never
going to outlive that billing so you're always

420
00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:19.400
going to be more Grandpaul and really
stream Being was a similar kind of guy

421
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:22.319
because he was sort of a guy
just you know, he's never going to

422
00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:25.359
outlive that buildings. I agree.
I happen to agree it with that very

423
00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:30.279
much. And I think that's a
very astute, astute observation that you make

424
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:32.799
that I think people don't often think
about it, but I happen to agree

425
00:33:32.839 --> 00:33:36.519
with you entirely. I think had
he lived, I think he would have

426
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:38.720
been, as you say, a
household name right there with Grandpa Jones and

427
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:40.759
some of those people. Because a
lot of people wh don't know anything about

428
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:45.599
country music per se, they know
who Grandpa Jones is. Today, when

429
00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:51.200
I think back on heehaw in watching
it as a kid, I think about

430
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:59.519
Grandpa Jones because that's how I remember
him in Minnie Pearl and Roy Clark Buck

431
00:33:59.559 --> 00:34:04.319
going Sloretta Lynn. I remember seeing
them all on key Hall when I was

432
00:34:04.359 --> 00:34:07.759
growing up, and then when they
did the skits where they were in the

433
00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:12.960
cornfield telling the jokes. I remember
watching this back in like seventy five,

434
00:34:13.159 --> 00:34:16.480
seventy six, seventy seven, watching
it with my grandparents and my parents,

435
00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:20.960
and even as a kid. I
used to just crack up with the jokes.

436
00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:24.519
I really don't think I knew what
was going on, but watching my

437
00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:28.920
parents and grandparents, and then of
course watching the actors on the show laughing

438
00:34:28.920 --> 00:34:32.519
at each other's jokes, I thought
it was funny too. So it was

439
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:37.599
definitely a pretty hilarious show back in
the day, even though I didn't know

440
00:34:37.639 --> 00:34:44.960
what was going on half the time. Yeah, I didn't either. Well

441
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:47.719
when it came to he Hall,
the producers must have been doing something right

442
00:34:47.960 --> 00:34:52.280
because it ran for over twenty years. I mean it was on for a

443
00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:57.840
long time. Oh yeah, but
you know it's funny. I didn't know

444
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:00.280
what's going on either when I was
a kid, but I thought I thought

445
00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:02.920
they weren't. The fact that they
would just crack up, as you say

446
00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:07.079
in that field you do, it
must be something funny and I don't know,

447
00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:09.679
it just always crack me up.
But I know exactly what you're talking

448
00:35:09.719 --> 00:35:15.000
about. Growing up in the late
seventies as I did. One of the

449
00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:22.119
fondest memories I have of my childhood
was watching Heaw with my parents and grandparents.

450
00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:27.920
Grandpa Jones would eventually become my favorite
character. We will take a final

451
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:34.159
break and when we return, Taylor
will discuss the longtime friendship between Grandpa Jones

452
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:55.000
and string Bean. So I've always
been fascinated with the friendship that Grandpa Jones

453
00:35:55.079 --> 00:36:00.119
had with string Bean. Did you
get to hear that many stories about their

454
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:05.280
friendship or did you even get to
hear that many stories about Grandpa Jones,

455
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:09.639
because of course he was another great
character on there on heaw, I mean,

456
00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:14.760
he was a World War two ve
train. So do you have any

457
00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:19.559
stories about his time in World War
two or anything about that He was a

458
00:36:19.639 --> 00:36:22.800
good fight in World War Two,
Yes, sir, and now certain being

459
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:27.840
was he was in the army for
a short time. But Grandpa actually he

460
00:36:27.920 --> 00:36:32.280
did. Stream Being was discharged,
but Grandpa Jones actually was in Europe and

461
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:36.639
he was there, and anyway,
yeah, it's kind of interesting. They

462
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:39.400
were both from Kentucky, and they
were from two different parts of Kentucky,

463
00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:44.239
but they were the same state,
and they were in Nashville. Grandpa came

464
00:36:44.639 --> 00:36:46.760
a little bit after a stream Being, but stream Being had been there with

465
00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:52.480
Bill Monrope. But Grandmal came kind
of when stream Being was making that transition

466
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:57.320
to being a solo performer, and
the stream Being was also marrying his second

467
00:36:57.360 --> 00:37:00.599
wife, the one that everybody knows
about steal And they were very close.

468
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:07.239
And it was also a time when
Grandpa Jones was marrying a Ramona the lady

469
00:37:07.360 --> 00:37:10.480
married I think it was his second
wife also, so you know, both

470
00:37:10.519 --> 00:37:15.840
of them really were starting over.
They had similar skills. They both played

471
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:21.519
claw hammer ban Joe, They both
knew the same songs. They both had

472
00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:24.400
a kind of not exactly this thing
being had a dryer sense of humor,

473
00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:29.239
but they both had this sense of
humor and were comics, and so they

474
00:37:29.239 --> 00:37:32.559
had a lot and both loved to
hunt and fish. Loved to hunt,

475
00:37:32.599 --> 00:37:37.119
both of them, and they used
to like to go down to the Hart

476
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:40.440
River and and just fish. And
they were really two peas in the pot

477
00:37:40.519 --> 00:37:45.599
if I could be permitted to use
that freeze. They were very similar,

478
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:47.920
very close, and that's really how
it happened. You know, they didn't

479
00:37:47.960 --> 00:37:52.199
perform very often together. They did. They can go on YouTube and find

480
00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:55.360
them playing a song or two,
but they didn't actually perform that much together

481
00:37:55.679 --> 00:38:00.800
relatively speaking. But they were extremely
close and they did performed, but not

482
00:38:00.840 --> 00:38:02.039
as much as you might think,
I guess what I'm saying. But they

483
00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:08.880
were very close friends. And in
fact, at one point David and Stell

484
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:14.360
Pateman the stream being and his wife
were living in Nashville and a kind of

485
00:38:14.360 --> 00:38:20.199
an apartment and that they were living
on Partland Street and anybody stream mister miss

486
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:25.440
Jones, Grandpa's a religor buis Marshall
Jones and Romana Jones. They basically said,

487
00:38:25.480 --> 00:38:30.960
look, we're going to pull our
money and buy a farm north of

488
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.880
Nashville and Ridge Tuck. And when
I say they were neighbors, they were

489
00:38:34.880 --> 00:38:38.039
neighbors. Like as I told you, I was at their house and it

490
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:43.679
was it's probably the house that Grandpa
and Romana lind is still fanding, but

491
00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:47.119
it's not in the vest shape.
But honestly, I would say it's probably

492
00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:54.079
about maybe maybe ten steps of a
normal person, of an adult person to

493
00:38:54.159 --> 00:38:58.840
walk from one house to the other. I mean, they're like right beside

494
00:38:58.840 --> 00:39:01.840
each other. And then they were
they were That's how close they were.

495
00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:08.599
Tremendously close. From one liners stand. They were always doing stuff together.

496
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:16.039
They were neighbors and best friends always, always always. That was a pretty

497
00:39:16.079 --> 00:39:22.400
amazing friendship. No exactly right,
and it lasted. I don't think most

498
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:27.440
people have friendships like that. Ones
that are that loyal. No, no,

499
00:39:28.599 --> 00:39:31.239
mister miss Jones. They ended up
They did end up coming back and

500
00:39:31.320 --> 00:39:35.199
they bought another place, or I
may have built it, but anyway,

501
00:39:35.239 --> 00:39:37.320
it was very close. Not as
close as that house, and then they

502
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:40.559
had their home chunk of land,
but it was very close. But to

503
00:39:40.639 --> 00:39:45.519
be that close and to remain friends, that's a real pestimony, I think,

504
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:50.719
to how close you know, how
similar they were, and the wives

505
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:55.440
were very close friends also, So
it's remarkable, really it is. Now

506
00:39:55.639 --> 00:40:02.840
take me up until the time when
Grandpa Jones found string being and his wife

507
00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:07.880
both dead. The thing that gets
me is that I know, as close

508
00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:12.079
of friends as they were, I
can't imagine how he must have felt.

509
00:40:12.599 --> 00:40:16.800
Imagine that you have plans to go
hunting with your best buddy, a guy

510
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:22.360
that's like a brother to you.
You're excited to be going on in this

511
00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:25.519
hunting trip with this friend of yours, and then you go to his house

512
00:40:27.079 --> 00:40:31.119
and find him and his wife both
dead and not by accident. Someone killed

513
00:40:31.159 --> 00:40:37.039
them. And from what I understand, it was hard on Grandpa Jones for

514
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:40.320
the rest of his life that he
probably never really got over it. So

515
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:45.360
tell me about that. Did you
get to learn anything about how it affected

516
00:40:45.480 --> 00:40:52.360
him for the rest of his life. Well, yeah, so I really

517
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:55.440
appreciate the way you think that question, because I think that's a good way

518
00:40:55.440 --> 00:41:00.920
to frame the question. We're obviously
inching towards the murder, but there is

519
00:41:01.159 --> 00:41:04.920
not just say it this way for
the moment, in the way of thinking

520
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.599
about Grandpa Jones's position, as you
say, it's a complete, complete shock.

521
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.920
They had a plan. This was
November the tenth, and nineteen seventy

522
00:41:14.920 --> 00:41:19.920
three was a Saturday, and they
had a plan. Grandpa Jones and Stream

523
00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:22.840
Bean and they call each other Grandpa
and Stream and they had a plan to

524
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:27.320
go hunting and Virginia. Grandpa had
worked up there for a while and they

525
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:30.119
were going to get up in the
next morning, Sunday morning. They were

526
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:32.239
at the grandall offering making their final
plans. On the night of November the

527
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:37.199
tenth, nineteen seventy three, they
had a plan to go to Virginia and

528
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:39.440
they were going to get up and
drive the next morning. When I say

529
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:42.840
they, it was going to be
Grandpaul because the stream being never drove.

530
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:45.920
But anyway, they were going to
go up in the morning, and Grandpa

531
00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:50.239
wanted to leave earlier. Stream Being
didn't like to get up early, so

532
00:41:50.519 --> 00:41:52.599
they split the difference, and I
think it was six thirty. Maybe they

533
00:41:52.639 --> 00:41:58.480
were planning to go. Well.
Next morning, Grandpa gets up, blows

534
00:41:58.559 --> 00:42:00.960
up as the vehicle and he comes
driving, and he comes up over the

535
00:42:01.039 --> 00:42:07.039
hill over the thing, and he
looks down and he sees the house of

536
00:42:07.159 --> 00:42:09.880
stream Being, but he sees that
there's no smoke coming out of the chimney.

537
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:13.719
And that was the thing that really
He would talk about this at the

538
00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:15.519
trial. He said, that was
the thing that really started to make me

539
00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:20.880
nervous because stream Being loved to get
up in the morning and kick the fire

540
00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:23.599
and the action get the fire going. He loved it every day of his

541
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:27.119
life if he could, if he
was at home. And so there was

542
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:30.360
no smoke coming out of the chimney. And in fact, I wanted at

543
00:42:30.400 --> 00:42:32.840
one point to call the book titled
the book No Smoke from the Chimney,

544
00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:37.119
because that was such a striking thing. Anyway says no smoke come from the

545
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:42.000
chimney. Anyway pulled in, you
got to pull over a little bridge,

546
00:42:42.039 --> 00:42:45.760
A little small bridge goes over a
little ditch, and then you go up

547
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:49.920
through a field and there's a cattle
there's a nat a gate there at the

548
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:53.199
ditch, but there was another cattle
gate closer to the house. Anyway,

549
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:57.599
you see you you see. He
thinks it's a clue in the field,

550
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:00.559
but he realizes access still gets out
a car, runs over to her.

551
00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:04.480
He says this, you know,
she'd been shot in the back of the

552
00:43:04.519 --> 00:43:07.760
head, shot in the arm.
He knew what it looked like. He

553
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:10.079
had seen a woman shot in Europe. And then it dawns on him,

554
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:15.239
and he's already horrifying and dawns on
him, you know, and already string

555
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:19.920
being it was known around town or
carrying cash with him, large amounts of

556
00:43:19.960 --> 00:43:23.280
cash. And and so Grandpa and
Grandpa Joves, his son told me,

557
00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:27.880
he said, my dad was always
saying, somebody's going to kill you someday

558
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:32.119
with you carrying that lot of money
around. And he realizes today is to

559
00:43:32.199 --> 00:43:35.880
day. And so he rushed over
his calling out the name, and he

560
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:39.960
rushed over. When inside the door, he could see through the screen the

561
00:43:40.039 --> 00:43:45.280
storm door and stream being was lying
kind of like if he goes straight into

562
00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:49.239
the house from the front door,
there's a fireplace. It looks the same

563
00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:52.559
day that they'd been. He's got
pan paneling around it. Stream Being was

564
00:43:52.599 --> 00:43:57.239
in in front of the fireplace.
His head was facing like his head was

565
00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:00.360
to the left, and there was
a doorway at that time there. But

566
00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:02.519
anyway, he found they found the
bodies, and that's that's how it was.

567
00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:07.599
It was. It was a life
changing, terrible moments. Now,

568
00:44:07.679 --> 00:44:15.599
tell me about the investigation, because
I'm sure that with the popularity of string

569
00:44:15.679 --> 00:44:20.320
being back in the time, I'm
sure the cops were held bent on trying

570
00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:25.920
to find out who did this,
right, So the investigation was let me

571
00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:29.960
just say this about the whole thing, the murder, of the investigation,

572
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.239
out of the trial that followed,
in the different stages of the trial were

573
00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:37.599
probably some of the most sensational to
hit Nashville ever really, to say the

574
00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:44.000
truth, certainly, in the lifetimes
of the people of that moment, it

575
00:44:44.079 --> 00:44:49.119
represented them a complete change of the
city. So did the city seemed menacing

576
00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:52.920
and big and dangerous in a way
that it never had seen to them before.

577
00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:58.840
And the country music industry was changed
that way and but fifting because there

578
00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:04.440
would be another situation, another trial, investigation and trial that would follow stream

579
00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:08.000
Being shortly after this, all have
hashed out and that one it was become

580
00:45:08.079 --> 00:45:13.519
the Marshal Trembrill case, and it
was also a basically kidnapping, and that

581
00:45:13.559 --> 00:45:16.760
one had kind of featured the same
cast of characters in terms of the police

582
00:45:16.800 --> 00:45:21.679
and so forth. Anyway, I
just mentioned that because this is not something

583
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:24.719
that just happened. This was a
big deal. The whole city was written.

584
00:45:24.920 --> 00:45:31.840
It was just written, and the
city was that ranged really because this

585
00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:38.000
wasn't wasn't a ravel rouser, you
know, and the city was really devastated.

586
00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:43.320
So I just that's something worth nothing. But as far as the investigation,

587
00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:47.880
you had the finishing kind of people, the police, the investigators felt

588
00:45:47.880 --> 00:45:53.159
a tremendous pressure. It probably worked. Noting I guess that the Metro the

589
00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:58.679
way it worked was there was this
Metro Davidson County like Metro, basically,

590
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:00.960
it wasn't a new form of government, and it cook it basically include an

591
00:46:01.079 --> 00:46:06.400
entire county, and so there was
a lot of ground to cover. The

592
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:10.199
equipment had not really caught up with
the moment that they were funding problems.

593
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:14.119
So there are a lot of headwinds, a lot of challenges. A lot

594
00:46:14.159 --> 00:46:19.039
of the investigators were I don't mean
any disrespect to them in any way.

595
00:46:19.320 --> 00:46:22.079
And I certainly I'm not an investigator
by trade, so I don't want to

596
00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:25.719
second guess them, but I'll just
say this, they were in a position

597
00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:31.119
where they had to assemble their own
investigation kit and put them in diplog bags.

598
00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:37.480
They didn't They didn't even have the
equipment to go handle a very high

599
00:46:37.559 --> 00:46:42.960
profile situation, very high profile murder. And the murder scene and I have

600
00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:45.960
to talk to people who were at
the murder scene was a complete circus.

601
00:46:46.199 --> 00:46:52.639
I mean people were stepping on evidence. And one of the investigators, I

602
00:46:52.639 --> 00:46:55.960
mean Jacobs, mentions it is look
people were there was who knows what kind

603
00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:01.360
of evidence was was obliterated and would
come up at the trial. The defense

604
00:47:01.400 --> 00:47:06.760
attorney for one of the men who
was charged and put on trial, he

605
00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:10.039
poked all kind of holes into the
waiting year investigation was done as far as

606
00:47:10.039 --> 00:47:14.679
the gathering of evidence and sore and
really but the first day or two they

607
00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:19.559
had no clue. They had no
idea who have done this? Had certain

608
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:22.239
had a few ideas. They had
some cigarettes and they had an idea about

609
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:25.119
who. Okay, well if we
could find people are smoking these different kinds

610
00:47:25.159 --> 00:47:30.199
of cigarettes, But there were some
strange things that the aintments had two cars.

611
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:31.880
One was a Cadillac and the other
one was a station wagon. The

612
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:36.840
station wagon had been driven to a
rock quarry. The police weren't quite sure

613
00:47:36.840 --> 00:47:39.719
why that was. So there was
kind of a very confusing things. And

614
00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:44.119
probably the worst thing of all,
the hardest things all from an investigation standpoint,

615
00:47:44.199 --> 00:47:49.039
is they couldn't find any enemies.
That they had no enemies, And

616
00:47:49.360 --> 00:47:52.000
what they began to hear about was
these people carried money, and they kept

617
00:47:52.039 --> 00:47:57.320
a lot of cash on their persons
and in the house. Now there were

618
00:47:57.360 --> 00:48:02.800
a lot of report Multiple people have
reported that still eight mon kept cash in

619
00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:07.880
cans like old coop cans and put
him in the freezer. There's never been

620
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:12.840
any mention of any of that money
being recovered, but the police decided that

621
00:48:13.079 --> 00:48:16.440
this was money motivated. Never say
anything about if there's any money in refrigerator.

622
00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:19.559
Who knows if it's true or not. I have no idea, but

623
00:48:19.639 --> 00:48:22.440
I can tell you this. There
was determined that the mode was money.

624
00:48:22.519 --> 00:48:29.239
But there was a wat of three
thousand dollars on stream being person in his

625
00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:34.599
overhauls in two thousand and the person
of this Steff that's the three thousand bills

626
00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:38.079
and didn't want all hundreds. That's
a substantial water of money. It seems

627
00:48:38.119 --> 00:48:43.559
to me, well, if you
think about it, five thousand dollars in

628
00:48:43.719 --> 00:48:47.719
nineteen seventy three, that was a
lot of money, right exactly, you

629
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:52.360
know, it's a lot of money. It's amiss that the whole purpose is

630
00:48:52.400 --> 00:48:55.480
to go kill somebody for the money
and you leave that kind of wat of

631
00:48:55.519 --> 00:49:00.199
money on there. I mean,
come home, you know, so way,

632
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:02.639
but whatever, that was what they
determined and and so that was what

633
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:07.920
set it up. And you know, basically in terms of evidence, they

634
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:15.360
found twenty two case sings and there
were different calibers basically of metal around and

635
00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:16.599
so they said, okay, well
there had to be certain kind of guns,

636
00:49:16.599 --> 00:49:20.679
and so I start piecing that together
as you would at any investigation.

637
00:49:21.320 --> 00:49:24.000
But really where the tide turned,
and it was very curious for the tide

638
00:49:24.079 --> 00:49:32.039
really turned, was that there was
a gentleman being held in custody who told

639
00:49:32.079 --> 00:49:36.719
the DA at the time, who
was named Thomas Schreiver. It was like

640
00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:40.519
this old time southern Middle Tennessee kind
of lawyer, but they weren't very old

641
00:49:40.519 --> 00:49:43.599
at the time. But his dad
had been a lawyer, and he was

642
00:49:43.639 --> 00:49:47.000
sort of an establishment guys Vanderbilt Tide. He was up for reelection, by

643
00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:51.719
the way at that time. But
anyway, this gentleman in custody said,

644
00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:54.519
I heard there were these fellows who
were planning this murder, and their names

645
00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:01.599
were John and Doug Brown, and
there also was and that Doug's brother Roy

646
00:50:01.880 --> 00:50:08.519
and his brother Charlie. Charlie Brown
were all kind of implicated, and that

647
00:50:08.679 --> 00:50:13.920
from that point forward, these gentlemen
were brought in. Job was actually not

648
00:50:14.039 --> 00:50:16.679
in town at the time, but
they were brought in and they were questioned.

649
00:50:16.800 --> 00:50:21.400
And one of the really interesting things
had happened at that moment was that

650
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:25.440
Charlie Brown, who owned a welding
business, hired Joe Binkley, who was

651
00:50:25.480 --> 00:50:31.559
the most expensive defense attorney in the
city of Nashville. And it's a very

652
00:50:31.599 --> 00:50:36.920
strange question. How in the world
could you pay for this guy if you

653
00:50:37.320 --> 00:50:39.840
just have a welding business. And
so the sort a big question in my

654
00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:44.199
mind. Did they come away with
money? Had they already come away with

655
00:50:44.239 --> 00:50:47.199
money? And was this thing where
they were surprised? There was there more

656
00:50:47.239 --> 00:50:52.480
to it? And there were questions
there. I think I never quite came

657
00:50:52.599 --> 00:50:57.159
to a satisfactory answer, maybe for
myself one and maybe there might be more

658
00:50:57.239 --> 00:51:00.320
come to light some day. But
anyway, that was how well, it

659
00:51:00.440 --> 00:51:01.880
was kind of a long model that
may have been more detailed than you were

660
00:51:01.920 --> 00:51:07.880
ontant. And that concludes the first
half. A string Beans story is told

661
00:51:08.039 --> 00:51:14.800
by author Taylor Heygood. If you
enjoy reading true crime books, then I

662
00:51:14.920 --> 00:51:19.599
highly recommend that you purchase a copy
of Taylor's book and adding it to your

663
00:51:19.599 --> 00:51:24.239
collection. The book takes you from
string Being's humble beginnings as a child making

664
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:30.480
his own instruments to becoming a country
music legend. You can get your own

665
00:51:30.519 --> 00:51:36.719
copy of string Being The Life and
Murder of a Country Music Legend, written

666
00:51:36.719 --> 00:51:42.480
by Taylor Heygood on Amazon dot com
or wherever else you purchase your favorite books.

667
00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:46.079
And if you would like to contact
Taylor about his book, please visit

668
00:51:46.679 --> 00:51:52.239
Taylor Heygood dot com. I will
be sure to include this information in the

669
00:51:52.320 --> 00:51:57.199
case story notes. And if you
are a parent, law enforcement official,

670
00:51:57.480 --> 00:52:01.480
friend, or relative seeking justice for
an unsolved comic side case, please visit

671
00:52:01.519 --> 00:52:07.599
my website and complete the contact form. You can also contact me through Facebook.

672
00:52:07.519 --> 00:52:08.559
Thank you for listening.