Episode seventy-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs delves into the tumultuous history of “Stagger Lee” by Lloyd Price, a song with roots stretching back to a Christmas Day altercation in 1895. This track, reimagined by artists from Ma Rainey to Nick Cave, embodies more than just a catchy tune; it encapsulates a complex narrative woven with threads of American racism, black underworld culture, and enduring folklore.
Lloyd Price, whom we previously encountered in Episode twelve, burst onto the scene in 1952 as a teenage sensation. Under the guidance of Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino’s producer and collaborator, Price recorded “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” at Cosimo Matassa’s legendary New Orleans studio. Featuring Domino himself on piano and Earl Palmer on drums, the song became an instant R&B hit on Specialty Records, the same label that would later launch the careers of Little Richard and Sam Cooke.
Lloyd Price performing with a microphone
While Price enjoyed initial success with other R&B hits, his career momentum stalled after being drafted. Upon his return, the music scene had shifted, leaving him struggling to regain his footing. However, covers of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” by Elvis Presley and Little Richard in the mid-50s reignited interest in Price. This renewed attention paved the way for his comeback in 1957 with songs like “Just Because,” a notable R&B hit. Yet, it was in 1958 that Lloyd Price unleashed his magnum opus – “Stagger Lee” – a song that not only catapulted him to mainstream stardom but also unearthed a narrative deeply embedded in American folklore, originating from a violent Christmas Day incident in St. Louis over six decades prior.
[“Stagger Lee” excerpt by Lloyd Price]
The lyrics of Price’s hit hint at the steamboat era with the mention of the “Lee Line.” The Lee Line, operated by the Lee family on the Mississippi, had a dual reputation. While known for subpar wages, it was also infamous for tolerating prostitution and gambling. This dubious allure paradoxically made it a preferred employer for some. A song from that era, predating 1939 but quoted in an article from that year, offers a glimpse into this lifestyle:
Reason I like the Lee Line trade
Sleep all night with the chambermaid
She gimme some pie, and she gimme some cake
And I give her all the money that I ever make
Among the Lee Line’s vessels was the Stack Lee, launched in 1902. This steamboat, like many others in the fleet, was named after a Lee family member, Captain Stack Lee, who captained the ship James Lee in the 1880s and 90s. Such was the captain’s notoriety among certain segments of the black community that, in 1948, scholar Shields McIlwayne claimed “more colored kids named Stack Lee than there were sinners in hell.” This reputation, intertwined with the steamboats’ association with illicit activities, likely contributed to a St. Louis pimp named Lee Shelton adopting the moniker “Stack Lee” sometime before the fateful Christmas of 1895.
On that Christmas Day, Bill Lyons, also known as “Billy the Bully,” entered the Bill Curtis Saloon. Forewarned about the saloon’s rough reputation, Lyons armed himself with a knife, seeking to avoid trouble. The term “bully” in that era held a different connotation, encompassing roles akin to both a pimp and a political “bagman,” highlighting the blurred lines between politics and organized crime in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These “bullies” often served as fundraisers and enforcers for political parties.
Lyons, though unpopular, wielded influence and belonged to a wealthy black family deeply entrenched in the Republican Party. In that post-Civil War era, black Americans overwhelmingly aligned with the Republicans, the party of Lincoln. The Bridgewater Saloon, owned by Lyons’ brother-in-law, Henry Bridgewater, frequently hosted Republican gatherings.
As Lyons ordered a drink, Lee Shelton, alias “Stack Lee,” entered the saloon. Shelton, a successful pimp and a Democrat, represented a rival faction. While the Democratic party held less sway among black voters at the time, disillusionment with Republican inaction on black issues was growing.
[Excerpt: Duke Ellington, “Stack-A-Lee Blues”]
Shelton was a prominent figure within the local Democratic party and enjoyed greater popularity among the black community than Lyons. Accounts suggest Shelton also possessed a relatively better reputation among the sex workers he employed. His attire that day was flamboyant: mirror-toed shoes, a velvet waistcoat, an embroidered shirt, gold rings, and an ebony cane topped with gold, all crowned by a white Stetson hat. Distinctive features included a slightly crossed left eye and facial scars.
Upon entering, Shelton reportedly asked, “Who’s treating?” and was directed to Lyons. Despite alleged past tensions stemming from Lyons’ step-brother’s murder of Shelton’s friend in the Bridgewater Saloon years prior, eyewitnesses, saloon bartenders familiar with both men, described them as “good friends.” Initially, they drank and laughed together until their conversation veered towards politics.
The atmosphere shifted as they began playfully slapping each other’s hats. The playfulness escalated when Shelton seized Lyons’ hat and broke its rim. In retaliation, Lyons snatched Shelton’s Stetson. Shelton demanded his hat back, but Lyons insisted on seventy-five cents—”six bits”—for a new hat. Shelton retorted that a box of such hats cost six bits and refused to pay. Lyons held firm, prompting Shelton to draw his gun and reiterate his demand. Lyons remained defiant. Shelton struck Lyons on the head with the pistol and threatened lethal force if his hat wasn’t returned.
Lyons then produced the knife his friend had given him earlier and challenged Shelton, reportedly saying, “You cock-eyed son of a bitch, I’m going to make you kill me,” before lunging at Shelton. Shelton fired, striking Lyons. Lyons staggered, clutching the bar, dropping Shelton’s hat. Shelton, using a racial slur, allegedly said, “I told you to give me my hat,” retrieved it, and calmly walked out. Billy Lyons succumbed to his wounds a few hours later.
[Excerpt: Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, “Stack O’ Lee Blues”]
Shelton’s arrest followed swiftly, but he was released on a substantial bail of four thousand dollars – equivalent to approximately $120,000 today. He secured the legal services of Nat Dryden, a lawyer renowned for his brilliance despite battling alcoholism and opium addiction. Dryden had a notable legal victory to his name, being the first lawyer in Missouri to successfully convict a white man for murdering a black man.
However, Shelton’s situation remained precarious due to Henry Bridgewater’s political clout. A mob of hundreds attempted to storm the inquest, requiring police intervention with drawn weapons to disperse them. Yet, between Shelton’s arrest and trial, Bridgewater’s political influence seemingly diminished.
Judge David Murphy presided over Shelton’s arraignment. Murphy was largely viewed favorably by the black community for his stance against police brutality. Notably, he had acquitted a black man who shot a policeman in self-defense during an assault and even jailed policemen who retaliated against the defendant outside the courtroom. This stance, while popular among black residents, was met with less approval from the white population.
[Excerpt: Frank Westphal and his Orchestra, “Stack O’Lee Blues”]
The 1896 Republican National Convention in St. Louis inadvertently played a role in shifting political tides. The city was chosen partly due to promises from white restaurant owners to desegregate during the convention. However, these promises were broken, and the Republican party failed to enforce them. This betrayal incensed many black delegates, who felt that the party’s patronage system consistently overlooked their community. James Milton Turner, a leading black Republican figure in Missouri and the first black US ambassador, publicly condemned the party’s treatment of black voters.
In the subsequent local Republican convention, black delegates supported Judge Murphy’s renomination. White delegates, however, voted against him. This marked a turning point. In 1896, a significant 90% of black voters in Missouri voted Democrat for the first time. Shelton’s Democratic faction was gaining power.
Due to Murphy’s non-renomination, Shelton’s trial was overseen by a different judge. Despite this change, Nat Dryden skillfully argued self-defense, citing Lyons’ knife. The jury deadlocked, leading to a retrial. Tragically for Shelton, Dryden would not represent him in the second trial. Dryden’s wife, unaware of his alcoholism, offered him sherry, triggering a relapse that led to his death.
In the retrial in late 1897, Shelton was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. His political connections likely spared him the death penalty and facilitated a parole after twelve years. However, in 1911, Shelton was rearrested for assault and robbery and died in prison.
Intriguingly, even before his first trial concluded, a song called “Stack-A-Lee” surfaced in Kansas City, played by a ragtime pianist. Lee Shelton’s connection to ragtime music is further solidified by his association with Tom Turpin, a prominent ragtime pianist.
Ragtime’s popularity surged after Scott Joplin’s performance at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. However, a year prior, Turpin, a friend of Joplin, penned “Harlem Rag,” published in 1897, marking the first published ragtime composition by a black composer.
[Excerpt: Ragtime Dorian Henry, “Harlem Rag”]
Turpin, like Shelton, was politically active in St. Louis and signed petitions for Shelton’s release. It is highly probable that Turpin composed the earliest ragtime renditions of the “Stagger Lee” song. Some scholars suggest he drew inspiration from “Bully of the Town,” a song from 1895 loosely based on a New Orleans murder.
“Bully of the Town” gained popularity through May Irwin in a play, notable for an 1897 Edison-filmed love scene, potentially the first ever filmed love scene. Irwin recorded a version in 1909, but its frequent use of a racial slur makes it unsuitable for broadcast. A 1920s rendition by Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers provides a sanitized alternative:
[Excerpt: Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers, “Bully of the Town”]
The original “Bully of the Town” narrative revolves around killing a bully – in the same vein as Billy Lyons – and assuming the bully’s mantle. Turpin could have easily adapted this framework, incorporating details of Shelton’s crime to create “Stagger Lee.”
By 1910, the “Stack Lee” song had permeated American culture. Folklorist John Lomax collected a version that year with lyrics reflecting the core narrative: “Twas a Christmas morning/The hour was about ten/When Stagalee shot Billy Lyons/And landed in the Jefferson pen/O lordy, poor Stagalee”.
In 1924, two white songwriters copyrighted a version titled “Stack O’Lee Blues.” Instrumental versions from 1923 and 1924, played earlier, exemplify this copyrighted iteration. Lovie Austin’s 1924 “Skeg-A-Lee Blues,” however, bears little lyrical resemblance to the Stagger Lee narrative we recognize today.
[Excerpt: Ford & Ford, “Skeg-A-Lee Blues”]
Ma Rainey’s 1925 recording marked the first vocal rendition closely resembling the modern “Stagger Lee.” Her version borrows melody and lyrics from “Frankie and Johnny,” another song rooted in a real St. Louis murder from the 1890s.
[Excerpt: Ma Rainey, “Stack O’Lee Blues”]
While Wikipedia credits Louis Armstrong on cornet for Rainey’s track, more reliable sources point to Joe Smith, with Coleman Hawkins and Fletcher Henderson also reportedly featured.
By 1927, “Stagger Lee” existed in numerous variations. Long Cleve Reed and Little Harvey Hull recorded a version drawing from “Bully of the Town”:
[Excerpt: Long Cleve Reed and Little Henry Hull — Down Home Boys, “Original Stack O’Lee Blues”]
Mississippi John Hurt’s iconic 1928 version famously questions, “Policeman, oh policeman, how can it be?/You can arrest everybody but Stagger Lee.”
[Excerpt: Mississippi John Hurt, “Stack O’Lee (1928 version)”]
By this juncture, the connection to the historical Lee Shelton had faded. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that writer Cecil Brown definitively identified Shelton as the song’s subject.
Throughout the 1930s and 40s, “Stagger Lee” was recorded by diverse musicians, from folk artists like Woody Guthrie and bluesmen like Ivory Joe Hunter to field recordings like “Bama” for the Lomaxes.
[Excerpt: Bama, “Stackerlee”]
None of these versions achieved major commercial success, but the song became deeply ingrained, particularly among black musicians in Louisiana. “Stagger Lee” became a staple in their repertoire. Most versions adhered to a basic structure: Stagger Lee kills Billy Lyons over a hat lost in a dice game; Billy pleads for his life, citing his family; Stagger Lee murders him anyway, the bullet often shattering the bartender’s glass.
Subsequent narrative variations emerged. In some, Stagger Lee evades capture, sometimes due to ineffective law enforcement or the pleas of adoring women. In others, he’s jailed or sentenced to death. Some versions depict him magically surviving execution, while others detail his demise, mourned by women clad in red. In darker iterations, Stagger Lee descends to Hell, ultimately overpowering the Devil himself, deemed less wicked than Stagger Lee.
Doctor John, the New Orleans pianist, reportedly could perform “Stagger Lee” for three hours straight without repetition, showcasing the song’s vast lyrical mutations.
Commercial success remained elusive for most “Stagger Lee” recordings until Archibald and His Orchestra’s 1950 New Orleans version.
[Excerpt: Archibald and His Orchestra, “Stack A’Lee”]
This extended rendition, spanning both sides of a 78 rpm record, was released on Imperial Records, Fats Domino’s label, and recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s studio. It reached the R&B top ten, becoming Archibald’s sole hit. This version, eight years later, inspired Lloyd Price’s chart-topping hit.
[Excerpt: Lloyd Price, “Stagger Lee”]
Price’s “Stagger Lee” became a phenomenon, reaching number one on both the Hot 100 and R&B charts, making Price the earliest solo artist with a Hot 100 number one still living today. The song revitalized Price’s career and propelled “Stagger Lee” into mainstream American culture.
In the following decades, “Stagger Lee,” often echoing Price’s rendition, became a standard for white rock musicians. Versions were recorded by artists like Huey Lewis and the News, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Neil Diamond.
[Excerpt: Huey Lewis and the News, “Stagger Lee”]
[Excerpt: Mike Love, “Stagger Lee”]
[Excerpt: Neil Diamond, “Stagger Lee”]
However, within the black community, the myth of Stagger Lee resonated on a different, deeper level. Commercial recordings represented only a fraction of the Stagger Lee narrative, sanitized for public consumption.
Stagger Lee evolved into a potent folkloric figure, embodying the rebellious “bad man” defying authority – a trickster archetype, but also a figure of violence and righteous, albeit chaotic, anger. He became a symbol of black defiance against societal disrespect, applied to figures ranging from O.J. Simpson to Malcolm X.
Bobby Seale, Black Panther Party leader, named his son Malik Nkrumah Stagolee Seale and often recited “Stagger Lee” verses at gatherings. Seale viewed Stagger Lee as a metaphor for marginalized black men and, symbolically, for Malcolm X’s transformative journey from “illegitimate hustler” to a figure of profound political consciousness.
Seale’s interpretation of Stagger Lee stemmed from “toasts,” a form of black American oral storytelling characterized by rhyming, often profane language, and taboo subjects. Toasts are considered precursors to rap music, sharing stylistic and thematic similarities. Famous toast narratives include “The Signifying Monkey” and “Shine and the Titanic.”
Shine, the black cook on the Titanic, another Stagger Lee-esque figure, swims to safety, rejecting the Captain’s daughter’s sexual offer for help, outswims sharks, and reaches land before news of the disaster arrives.
These toasts remained largely underground until scholar Bruce Jackson’s seminal book, “Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me: African-American Poetry from Oral Tradition,” brought them to academic light. Jackson’s field recordings, primarily from prisons, later released on CD without performer names, include a raw, uncensored “Stagger Lee.”
[Excerpt: Unknown field recording, “Stagger Lee”]
Johnny Otis, predating Jackson’s recordings’ wider release, musicalized toasts on his “Snatch and the Poontangs” album, including “The Great Stack-A-Lee,” clearly drawing from the same toast tradition Jackson documented.
[Excerpt: Snatch and the Poontangs, “The Great Stack-A-Lee”]
Otis’s version served as the foundation for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ 1995 rendition.
[Excerpt: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Stagger Lee”]
Cave acknowledged improvising the music and using lyrics from Jackson’s book, but the melody closely mirrors Johnny Otis’s version. A specific line in Cave’s version, “I’m bad as can be,” originates not from Jackson’s toasts but from another track on “Snatch and the Poontangs,” “Two-Time Slim.”
[Excerpt: Snatch and the Poontangs, “Two-Time Slim”]
This is the Stagger Lee of legend, the Stagger Lee portrayed in James Baldwin’s poem “Stagolee Wonders,” a powerful critique of racist society. Baldwin viewed Stagger Lee as “a black folk hero, a singer essentially…one who conveys the real history,” rooted in the black experience from slavery to the church.
This mythical Stagger Lee is a far cry from the historical pimp killing in 1895. Lloyd Price’s hit version, while immensely popular, largely obscured this deeper, more complex mythos.
“Stagger Lee” propelled Lloyd Price to continued success in the late 1950s and early 60s with hits like “Personality.” He diversified into boxing promotion, notably connecting Don King with Muhammad Ali and facilitating the “Rumble in the Jungle.” At 87, Lloyd Price continued performing until recently, often opening shows with “Stagger Lee,” a testament to the enduring power of a song born from a dark Christmas Day and transformed into a multifaceted cultural legend.
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