A Crying Shame

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).

When violence, hubris, and stupidity meet stubbornness and the kind of fear that can only be born of catastrophic poverty and loss, the results are never good. In fact, they’re a crying shame.