Stringbean, The Grand Ole Opry Comic

Cafe Society
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Looking for an online picture of Stringbean, the Grand Ole Opry Comic, who wore overalls with the seat being at about knee level.

I’ve just about convinced a friend that young urban males stole rap from Johnny Cash and now I want to show where they got their fashion from.

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Here’s the picture you need to make your case, though. Jeans, not overalls, at knee level.

Here’s another shot.

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Thanks. How did you find them. I’ve been looking off and on for quite a while. The only possible explanation is that those pictures just went up.

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Just used a google image search.

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Perhaps not relevant to your search for pictures but, String was a respected musician as well as comic. He played banjo, albeit of a different style, with Bill Monroe’s band before being replaced by Earl Scruggs. String (real name David Akeman) and his wife were murdered in 1973 by burglars who entered his residence having heard that he kept great amounts of money in his home.

CH

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Believe me I’ve tried that, many a time. It has been a couple of months since I last tried.

Again, thanks for the finds.

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Let us know how this works out, I’d be interested to hear. What Johnny Cash song(s) did you use to show the rap connection?

CateAyo, I remember the Stringbean murders. Those murders changed the whole Middle Tennesse area as far as perception of crime goes. The robbers never did find the money, but it turned up some 20 years later, stashed behind a brick in the chimney.

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He was a bit of a throwback to the days when string band acts were almost as much about comedy as about music. I’m thinking particularly of Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, whose live act in the 1920s featured sting music interspersed with comedy skits. (Or maybe it was comedy skits interspersed with string music.) Hee Haw and Stringbean were following that tradition.

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Johnny Cash occasionally recorded “talking blues”. Which has a long history in black music & in white music influenced by black music. Which pretty much describes most worthwhile American music.

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There was a nice biography of Stringbean on the WFMU site a couple months ago:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/06/murder_in_the_k.html