Three Views of Stagger Lee |

Popular culture comes in a variety of forms. There may be a traditional version (or versions) that is handed down from generation to generation. There may be underground variations that until recent years were not discussed in polite society. And there may be a “prime time” offering designed so as not to offend a broad general audience. As a case in point, I offer “Stagger Lee” — one of the most durable American crime ballads and a celebration of badass criminal violence that predates gangsta rap by about ninety years.

“Stagger Lee,” also known as “Stackolee” and “Stagolee,” has been recorded over four hundred times by artists from Mississippi John Hurt to Wilson Picket to, in more recent years, Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse. It tells the story of a fight between a man named Billy Lyons and the title character — a tough-as-nails anti-hero who mercilessly shoots Billy down. Here is a recording with a traditional feel released in 1969 by Taj Mahal.

Much research has gone into tracing in the origins of the song. In The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language, Alan Lomax referred to tales identifying Stagger Lee with the mulatto son of a Confederate cavalryman and with a “tough Memphis sport” who “sold his soul to the Devil in return for a magic Stetson hat.” But more recent scholarship has identified the protagonist as

Lee Shelton, a pimp who actually did shoot Williams Lyons, a father of three, in a saloon in Deep Morgan, a St. Louis tenderloin district, on Christmas in 1895. The dispute involved an argument during which Lyons snatched Shelton’s Stetson, but there was a subtext. Lyons, whose brother-in-law was an influential ward heeler, was allied with the local Republican machine, while Shelton ran a Democratic club at a time when the parties were competing for African-American votes. In addition, Lyon’s step-brother had previously killed one of Shelton’s friends and, with the help of political connections, escaped punishment.

What happened next is chronicled in, among other sources, David J. Krajicek’s 2011 book True Crime: Missouri. Shelton was charged with first degree murder, but hired Nat Dryden, a prominent defense attorney, and claimed self-defense. After twenty-three hours of deliberation, the jury deadlocked. Unfortunately for Shelton, his talented counsel died of an overdose before he could be retired. He was convicted of second degree murder but, thanks to pressure from Democratic politicians, paroled by the governor in 1909. Two years later, he pistol-whipped a man over a debt and returned to prison. Political pressure was again applied, and Shelton was again ordered paroled but, while the matter was being contested, he died in prison of tuberculosis. Shelton was forgotten, but gained an unlikely musical immortality.

And not just musical. “Stackolee” became the subject of a street chant — a mythic figure who wouldn’t take shit and was inexhaustibly virile to boot. For example, in a version recorded by Bruce Jackson — and reprinted in part in Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice by Charles E. Silberman — Stackolee gets into an argument with a bartender, shoots him six times, and then has sex with a “broad … on the table and all over the floor,” while waiting for Billy to show. Next, he shoots Billy nine times. The following day, the jury deliberates as to his fate:

One say, “Hang him,” another say, “Give him gas.”

A snaggle-tooth bitch jumped up and say, “Run that

twister through his jivin’ ass.”

My woman jumped up and said,”let him go free,

’cause there ain’t nobody in the world can fuck like Stackolee.”

What was mainstream America to do with this? Lloyd Price released a recording of the song that reached Number 1 on the Billboard Pop Chart in 1959. The lyrics were fairly similar to those in the Taj Mahal recording above — and included an awful part where Billy begs to be spared on account of his “three little children” and “very sickly wife,” and Stagger Lee shoots him anyway. But Dick Clark wasn’t happy. So in order to appear on American bandstand, Price had to revise the lyrics. Here’s the hilarious result:

So there you have it. Pop culture through three lenses: (1) the traditional take; (2) the long unprintable street take and (3) the Disney version.

Three Views of Stagger Lee

Author: Lame Dog

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