David ‘Stringbean’ Akeman: the curious assassination of a country banjo player
As the old joke goes, ‘What is the least heard phrase in America: is that the banjo player’s Ferrari outside?’ The cheery little country instrument has become an all-encapsulating symbol of American society. That old joke speaks of the disparities at play. But, ironically, one of America’s great humorists also defines how the instrument sings of lowly defiance in the face of this societal division. “The banjo is such a happy instrument,” Steve Martin once said, “You can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.”
David ‘Stringbean’ Akeman was emblematic of the dreamy, never-say-die attitude of America’s rural working class. In the big bulging country, this illiterate ne’er-do-well sought his own snippet of the American dream. The banjo was to be his engine towards this lofty horizon, and with little more than clawhammer skills, quick wit, and personable ways, he damn near arrived there. Tragically, his end also typifies how this dream often seems more like a bygone fantasy.
Hailing from the small town of Annville, Jackson County, Kentucky, music and performance also looked set to be Akeman’s path in life. But the Great Depression arrived in 1929 when Akeman was only 14 and quickly dashed his banjo-playing aspirations. So, like many other young men, Akeman joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, planting trees and building roads across America. Alas, this also seeded the image of the travelling performer.
Soon, he was playing in a band where the nickname ‘Stringbean’ stuck owing to his lanky physique. This would become a trademark for the musician as he honed his solo act—wearing long shirts tucked into trousers that only went about midway up his thighs to accentuate his long torso. This was the mark of a man who would happily become one of America’s most affable entertainers. With an assortment of jokes and wry country hits, he rose through the rural circuits.
He married Estell in 1945, and the pair were able to live humbly but comfortably together thanks to Stringbean’s frequent performances at the Grand Ole Opry alongside his friend and new neighbour in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, Grandpa Jones. In this country retreat, Akeman was able to live an idyllic existence. He didn’t have a fortune, but thanks to appearing on shows like Hee Haw, he had a hell of a lot for a banjo player.
Fatefully, he would often tell friends that he lived so peacefully he could leave a bucket of cash out on the porch, head out on tour, and when he got back, it would still be there. As someone who came of age in the Great Depression and lost all trust in the banks, this would almost be the truth. Tragically, it would also be his undoing.
In 1973, he returned home with his wife after a concert at the Opry. These shows were now routine, having become one of the venue’s most beloved performers. When he pulled up to the driveway, he noticed something was amiss about his fabled porch. He approached his house cautiously, armed with his trusted pistol. However, as he entered, two young men were waiting for him.
The two frustrated youngsters had torn apart the cabin looking for cash and instantly gunned Akeman down upon entry. When his wife, who had been trailing behind him, fled for help, she was pursued and shot while pleading for her life. And so it came to pass that two hearty symbols of America’s smiling backbone were murdered for the mere $250 the perpetrators were able to pilfer from their bodies, a few guns found on the property, a chainsaw, and the couple’s station wagon that the pair made off in.
Indeed, when investigators arrived on the scene after Grandpa Jones happened upon the tragic sight and reported it, they were quickly able to find $5,700 sewn into secret pockets hidden in the couple’s clothing (almost $40,000 when adjusted for inflation in 2023). It was assumed that more cash was surely hidden somewhere else on the property that went unrecovered. Simple robbery was quickly touted as the motive by investigating police, and for a community built on trusted cohesion, this was hard to reconcile.
As fellow Opry star Roy Acuff told TV reporters at the time: “This is so sad. Why would anyone want to harm String? He was such a gentle guy, always helping others. Money, I guess. That’s why they did it. Look at that little house. That’s the way String wanted to live. He could have bought ten farms that size, with ten mansions on them, but he preferred to fish, hunt and sit in that rocking chair and look up at the mountains.”
This was just the beginning of a dawning despair. Seventeen days later, the bodies of country star James ‘Jimmie’ Widener and his friend Mildred Hazelwood were also found dead following a robbery. “First, it was Stringbean — a good guy. Now it is Jimmy Widener — a good guy,” the musician Hank Snow commented in the aftermath. “I wonder when it’s going to stop.” In less than three weeks, two of the Opry’s most esteemed performers had been killed for a quick buck after playing at the venue. If this was America’s most wholesome genre, then the wider implications for society were obvious.
“It was a subculture where everyone dealt in handshakes, promises and word-of-mouth with no fear of betrayal,” guitarist Steve Gibson, whose father, Curt, performed alongside Akeman on his final night alive at the Opry, told the Tennessean. “The best qualities of any small town really defined Nashville as Music City, and with the violent, brutal murders of Stringbean and Estelle, everyone had to rethink all that. We started looking over our shoulders and wondering what was happening.”
While two 23-year-old cousins, John Brown and Doug Brown, would promptly be found and arrested following a 67-day investigation, the shockwaves of what had happened reverberated beyond any impending justice. They soon admitted to the heinous crimes, commenting that it was no more than a drug-fuelled bid to steal some cash from someone who was known to have a stash of it. Likewise, the killer of Widener and Hazelwood was also quickly identified to be Maurice McKinney Taylor after he was caught trying to use their stolen credit cards. The 30-year-old later ousted 24-year-old Richard Benjamin Dunn and 23-year-old Phillip Glen Mason as his accomplices.
Countless pieces of material evidence linked both murderous parties to separate crimes, which, in the case of the Brown cousins, included the theft of one of Strigbean’s unique one-piece outfits serving as a certified smoking gun. The trials ran simultaneously, and although justice was swiftly served, there was a sense of damnation lingering over the successful sentencing; the picket-fenced ideals of the American Dream were impeached by the cold-blooded nature of the slaying of these lowly heroes.
Alas, in 1996, a fitting bittersweet appendix would conclude the tale of Stringbean’s sorry end. A tenant who was renting his old cabin noticed scraps of paper protruding from a loose stone in the breast of the fireplace. When he removed it, he found $20,000 stashed away, rendered useless by decay, reclaimed by nature, as though Stringbean himself had humbly intended it that way.
