[1] He played a pivotal role in the career of Kris Kristofferson and guided other artists including Dolly Parton, Larry Gatlin, Tony Joe White and Billy Swan.

[2] As a young man, he had stint of acting in motion pictures in Hollywood and he himself became a recording artist with some fleeting success — but Beckham turned to music publishing in 1961 as his primary career.

[3] In the 1970s, Beckham became a major power on Music Row,[4] and nurtured many great songwriters who wrote classic hits like "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Sunday Morning Coming Down" (Kris Kristofferson), and Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" (Dennis Linde).

[1][6] He was a Hollywood movie actor for a while (Junior G Men, Starmaker ) but returned to Oklahoma in 1940 to attend school.

When his performing career waned, he settled in Nashville in 1959, where producer Owen Bradley suggested song publishing as a possibility.

[1] Beckham's starting job in publishing was in 1961 as the Nashville liaison for Atlanta's Bill Lowery, helping nurture the careers of Ray Stevens, Jerry Reed and Joe South.

According to historian Michael Kosser, "Beckham was one of those rare publishers who truly loved songwriters, and he quickly established his reputation as a gruff but very supportive father figure to his staff writers.

According to musician Norbert Putnam, "Beckham, we felt, built his company because he had free beer every day at five.

[13] Beckham was also shrewd in pioneering deals for song exposure in commercials, placing Combine's copyrights in advertising jingles.

[1] In 1964, Dolly Parton moved to Nashville the day after she graduated from high school in East Tennessee.

[20] Other artists took three of the songs on his Kristofferson album to top-ten status: "For the Good Times" [c] (Ray Price); "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" (Johnny Cash); and "Help Me Make It Through the Night" (Sammi Smith).

[22] In 1969, a 26 year old musician and songwriter from St. Louis named Dennis Linde (pronounced LIN-dy) came to Nashville and was hired as staff writer by Beckham.

Linde said, "Bob Beckham's building at Combine was a rickety old two-story place, and Kris [Kristofferson] lived in an upstairs room next door.

[27] The first singer to record it was Arthur Alexander on the Warner Brothers label in late 1971, but soon the song reached Elvis Presley who released his own version.

This eclipsed Alexander's version quickly— Presley's making the top ten in both the U.S. and Europe and scarcely missed becoming No.

[28] Combine's success peaked in the early 1970s largely due to the Kristofferson and Linde hits so big that they became country standards.