Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee, also known as Stagolee, Stack O'Lee, Stack-a-Lee and by several other spelling variants, was a American murderer whose tawdry crime was immortalized in a blues folksong.

Stag Lee was apparently a person named Lee Sheldon. According to a story appearing in the St. Louis, Missouri Globe-Democrat in 1895:

William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o'clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, a carriage driver. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon's hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Sheldon is also known as 'Stag' Lee.[1]

Lyons eventually died of his injuries. Sheldon was tried, eventually convicted, and served prison time for this crime. This otherwise unmemorable crime is remembered in a song.

The song was well known in African American communities along the lower Mississippi River by the 1910s. Before World War II, it was almost always known as "Stack O'Lee". W.C. Handy wrote that this probably was a nickname for a tall person, comparing him to the tall smoke-stack of the large steamboat Robert E. Lee. By the time that W.C. Handy wrote the explanation in the 1920s, "Stack O' Lee" was already familiar in United States popular culture, with recordings of the song made by such pop singers of the day as Cliff Edwards.

An early Blues recording of the song from 1928 was made by Mississippi John Hurt, a Delta Blues musician. His lyrics were,

Police officer, how can it be?

You can arrest everybody but cruel Stagolee

That bad man, cruel Stagolee

Billy Lyons told Stagolee, "Please don't take my life

I got two baby children and a darling, loving wife"

That bad man, cruel Stagolee

"Would I care about your two babes and darling, loving wife?

You done stole my Stetson hat, I'm bound to take your life."

That bad man, cruel Stagolee

Stagolee stood on the gallows, head way up high

Twelve o'clock, they killed him, we were all glad to see him die

That bad man, cruel Stagolee

As in all such pieces, there are many (sometimes anachronistic) variants on the lyrics. Several older versions give Billy's last name as "De Lyons" or "Deslile".

One variation, credited as "traditional," as originally recorded and performed by Lloyd Price, goes:

(intro) The night was clear, and the moon was yellow

And the leaves came tumblin' down. . .

I was standing on a corner

When I heard my bull dog bark

He was barking at two men

Who were gambling in the dark

It was Stagger Lee and Billy

Two men who gambled late

Stagger Lee threw a seven

Billy swore that he threw eight

Stagger Lee he told Billy

"I can't let you go with that

You won all o' my money

And my brand new Stetson hat."

Stagger Lee started off walking

Down that old railroad track

He turned and told Billy

"Don't be here when I come back"

Then old Stagger Lee, he went home

And he got his forty-four

He said "I'm going down to the barroom

To pay that debt I owe"

bridge: Go, Stagger Lee!

And Stagger Lee went in the barroom

And he stared across the barroom floor

He said, "You did me wrong, Billy"

And he pulled out his forty-four

"Oh, Stagger Lee," cried Billy

"Please don't take my life

I got three young children

And a very sickly wife"

Stagger Lee...He shot Billy

Oh, shot that poor boy so hard

The bullet went through Billy

And broke the bartender's bar.

The song has been recorded hundreds of times by a great variety of performers. A different version was a chart hit for Lloyd Price in 1959. The version best known by Price has somewhat different lyrics; Dick Clark felt that the original tale of murder was too lowlife for his American Bandstand audience, and insisted that they be changed. Other performers who have recorded it include:

Stagger Lee

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