#stringbean akeman

you learned to hide them, the treasures you acquired with your humble labors,

safe from every threat but rumor; the corrosive gossip of neighbors

conspired to leave you to the mercies of a pair of perfect strangers

who knew better than you did that what you keep hid will kill you quicker

than a black bird that skims the cornfield in the dawn's first, earliest light

In the Appalachian South, the murders of David “Stringbean” Akeman and his wife, Estelle, evoke as much passion as the Manson Family murders do here in California. There’s ample evidence of that in Verlon Thompson’s “The Ballad Of Stringbean and Estelle”, which Thompson sings here with Shawn Camp (Earls of Leicester).