Copyright © 2002-2005
by James P. Hauser
except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Stagger Lee: From Mythic Blues Ballad to Ultimate Rock 'n' Roll Record
The AKA Blues Connection: Documenting the Blues Roots of Rock 'n' Roll
The Story of the Black Badman, the Stetson Hat, and the Ultimate Rock 'n' Roll Record
Part 3: The Transformation
In this part, we will look at how the legend of Stagger Lee evolved from that of a ruthless badman to that of a civil rights hero. But before exploring this transformation, we need to clarify the use of the term "badman". In African-American culture, the black badman was often viewed sympathetically and was even thought of as a hero. (White folklore also has its share of badman heroes. For example, the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd was a hero to many and was even celebrated in song by Woody Guthrie.)
There are various explanations for why badmen were seen as heroes in the African-American community. One that fits well with the Stagger Lee legend can be found in an essay on black folklore by John W. Roberts which appears in the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. According to Roberts, the black badman could be viewed sympathetically by African Americans because his victims were often dishonest, roguish characters who threatened to upset the harmony existing within the black community. The badman eliminated individuals whose conduct put the community in danger of having the law stick its nose in to interfere with local affairs. This can be explained specifically in relation to the subject matter of this essay. Within the African American community, illegal activities such as the juke joint gambling engaged in by badmen such as Stagger Lee were an accepted and (arguably) necessary part of life (even though they may have been illegal or considered to be immoral by some members of the community). But a cheat--such as Billy was often portrayed to be--was not to be tolerated, as he had the potential to brew up the kind of trouble that would bring into the black community a very unwelcome element--the white man's law. And the policing of juke joints would result in restrictions that would interfere with the ability of these establishments to provide a good time for their patrons.
The above explanation and others dealing with why badmen were heroes to blacks revolve around the adversarial relationship between the black community and the white system of law. Since the white man's law was used to enforce the racist rules of the Jim Crow system against blacks, it is understandable that they could make heroes out of the badmen who were at odds with the law. This point will soon be illustrated below in a discussion of how a real life badman named Roy became a hero to the black community in which he lived.
Now let's take a detailed look at how Stagger Lee's transformation from badman hero to civil rights champion took place and how this change was reflected in black music. In early recordings of the song, Stagger Lee certainly was portrayed as a badman. One of the earliest recorded versions, titled "Stack O' Lee Blues" was by Ma Rainey (available on her Complete Recorded Works Volume 3, 1925-1926). Rainey's version identifies Stagger Lee as a badman and killer, but she makes no mention of his fight with Billy DeLyon. In the year 1927, Furry Lewis recorded a version titled "Billy Lyons and Stack O' Lee" (available on his Complete Recorded Works, 1927-1929) in which Stagger Lee shoots Billy Lyons during a great fight triggered by a gambling dispute. Stagger Lee shows no mercy as Billy's sister begs him to spare her brother's life. A key element in this song is that the law is afraid to go after Stagger Lee who is armed with a deadly forty-five. In possibly the greatest version of the song, Mississippi John Hurt's 1928 recording (available on Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings) makes no mention of gambling, but he identifies the dispute as being over a five dollar Stetson hat. (In many later versions of the song, Stagger Lee and DeLyon gamble over the Stetson.) Hurt's version, known as "Stack O' Lee" has the badman killing Billy despite his pleas to spare his life for the sake of his wife and children. Similar to Lewis's recording, Hurt's version portrays the police as being afraid to go after Stagger Lee for his crime. A key element in Hurt's version occurs when Stagger Lee is at the hangman's noose--he holds his head up high, apparently having made no apologies and showing no sense of guilt. (Blues historian Max Haymes points out the badman's defiance at the rope in his essay "Got the Blues for Mean Old Stack O' Lee". It is posted on the world wide web at www.earlyblues.com. Also, the lyrics to most of these early versions of the song are included in that essay.)
There are three key elements--the law's fear of Stagger Lee, his lack of remorse at the gallows, and the dispute involving the Stetson--that are crucial to understanding how the gambler's legend evolved from badman to civil rights hero. Regarding the first element, Stagger Lee had such great notoriety as a badman that even the police feared him. This was enough to draw admiration from members of the black population who, under the Jim Crow system, must have seen the white man's law as nothing short of evil. Jim Crow, backed up by a strong--and often racist--police force and by the threat of extralegal acts like lynching, was the white man's way of ensuring that blacks "stayed in their place". They were required to be obedient and submissive to discriminatory laws and practices which not only held them back but were also humiliating and degrading. Due to this oppressive white system, African Americans must have envied a legendary figure like Stagger Lee, a man of their own race who could do as he well pleased and still have the law stay out of his way. But they did not envy him for being a feared criminal; they envied--and admired--him because he refused to accept the subordinate place of a black man in the white man's world. He stood tall and defied the white man's law. And in versions of the story where the law does catch up with him and executes him, his legend grows even greater as he is victorious in a battle with the devil, taking control of the underworld and turning it into his own badman's paradise.
Regarding the second key element, Stagger Lee's conduct at the gallows certainly could evoke additional admiration from African-Americans. By standing in defiance before the hangman's noose, he was violating a sacred ritual of the white man's system of justice. As discussed by David M. Oshinsky in Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice, the "execution ceremony" required that the condemned man should confess to his crimes, say that he was sorry, and ask for forgiveness from God. In doing so, he (in effect) admits that the white man's law is good and fair, and recognizes that the white man's law is also God's law, and acknowledges that justice is being served through his execution. Oshinsky recounts the events documented in the book Deep South (by Allison Davis, Burleigh Gardner, and Mary Gardner) revolving around two black men about to be executed in Natchez, Mississippi in the year 1934. One man, identified as Nathan, acted out the part that the authorities expected of him; he "got religion", confessed to his crimes, and admitted that he was wrong. The other man, identified as Roy, refused to take part in the execution rituals that the authorities laid out for him. He rejected all attempts at getting him to admit guilt, repent, or apologize. The one ritual that he did participate in was the last meal, and he mocked this tradition by ordering a final meal of chicken and dumplings and--to show his disdain for the proceedings--cigars. On the day of his execution, he stood calmly at the rope, quietly defiant until the very end. He was the living incarnation of Mississippi John Hurt's Stack O' Lee, standing at the gallows with his head proudly held high.
To the local African American community, Roy was considered a hero. He became a local Stagger Lee like legend and a mythology grew around him which included exploits such as going down to hell and ripping the devils horns from his head. Roy, a man who had killed his wife and her father, became a hero because he refused to participate in the white man's execution rituals--rituals which served to confirm white supremacy and black inferiority. On the other hand, Nathan, the man who did participate in the rituals, was seen as a coward. The black community certainly thought of Roy as a man who deserved to be punished for his crimes, but he was viewed as a hero due to the defiant and fearless way that he died under the white man's system. As Oshinsky pointed out in his book, one of the local African Americans made an observation that reflected the feelings of his people very well when he stated that Roy "wasn't much good at livin', but he knew how to die". By refusing to honor the white man's execution rituals, Roy and Stagger Lee stood as courageous figures to African Americans.
So far, this paper has discussed two of the three key elements that are crucial for gaining an understanding of how Stagger Lee was transformed from a badman into a champion for black freedom. Before getting into the third key (i.e. the dispute over the Stetson hat), let us continue looking at how Stagger Lee's legend continued to change over the years as recorded in song by various blues artists. As discussed earlier, the legend of Stagger Lee evolved over time as various musicians emphasized different aspects of the story and added their own embellishments. As the song continued to change through this folk process, two of the key elements were no longer present in a version recorded by New Orleans musician Archibald. It was titled "Stack-A-Lee" and became an R&B hit in 1950. In Archibald's version, the lyrics make no mention of either the law's fear of Stagger Lee or of his defiant conduct at his execution. These two key elements have disappeared. In fact, the lyrics make no mention of the law at all and don't even hint at Stagger Lee being executed or brought to justice in any way. (Note 1) Only one of the three key elements remains--the dispute over the Stetson.
By excluding the two key elements which dealt with Stagger Lee being brought to justice, Archibald toned down some of the negative aspects of the badman's story. He presented him as a more positive figure in other ways also. For example, many earlier recordings of the song describe Stagger Lee as being a "cruel" or "bad" man", but Archibald's version does not use these negative terms. The basic storyline remains the same--Stagger Lee still kills Billy DeLyon in a dispute over a Stetson, but the killer is not characterized as an evil person. Instead, in this particular version of the tale, Stagger Lee could simply be an honest man who was cheated by Billy (according to the lyrics, Stagger Lee rolled a seven, but Billy claimed it was an eight), and in his anger made the terrible mistake of taking his opponent's life. This is something quite different from being a ruthless killer.
Archibald's "Stack-A-Lee" was a huge influence on a recording by Lloyd Price, a musician who also just happened to be from New Orleans. Price's record, titled "Stagger Lee", was a #1 hit in the late 1950s and it is the version that most people are familiar with today. The lyrics to "Stagger Lee" are almost identical to the lyrics in Archibald's record. Therefore, the two key elements which are not present in Archibald's version (i.e. the law's fear of Stagger Lee and his remorseless defiance at the gallows) are also absent from Price's recording. But Price adds some new twists to the song--he fills his voice with exuberance and employs a musical accompaniment of instruments and back-up singers with an extremely jubilant tone. The record sounds like a celebration, like a Gary U.S. Bonds party record or a frat-rock song. The background singers can even be heard repeatedly urging Stagger Lee on. It was a song about a violent murder that seemed to celebrate the event. To anyone who was paying attention to the song's lyrics, this must have been quite shocking. After all, the record was released in the 1950s, not in today's world of Eminem and gangster rap. Despite the violent lyrics, according to Price (as discussed in an article in Living Blues #147, September-October 1999), the only DJ who would not play the record was Dick Clark. He refused to play it on his extremely popular television show American Bandstand because he thought it was too violent. Knowing that sales of "Stagger Lee" would increase greatly if it received exposure on Clark's show, Price rerecorded the song, changing the lyrics so that the story ended with apologies instead of murder (Notes 2 and 3)
Despite the censorship, the original record--which seemed to celebrate a tragic murder and treat the killer like a hero--was well on its way to becoming a #1 hit on both the pop and R&B charts before it was replaced with the nonviolent version. How could this be? Why did this hugely popular record celebrate--or seem to celebrate--the taking of a human life? One possible explanation can be found by looking at the production approach typically employed by Price's record company, ABC-Paramount, in making his records. As pointed out by Charlie Gillett in his classic rock history The Sound of the City, ABC's typical approach to recording the singer was to provide a loud, rhythmic, and cheerful musical backing for his voice. In other words, you could say that this tale of murder was given a merry, high-spirited musical accompaniment simply because the record company produced all of Price's records that way regardless of the lyrical content.
The above explanation is probably accurate in a certain sense, but it does not tell the whole story. There was something much deeper going on with Price's record, as signaled by the fact that it included the addition of a quite unique and powerful introduction to the song which linked it to the spiritual "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho". As pointed out near the beginning of this essay, creating this link between "Stagger Lee" and the slave spiritual is an indication that the struggle between Stagger Lee and Billy DeLyon had become symbolic of the black man's struggle for liberation from white oppression. And as also discussed earlier, the legendary figure of Stagger Lee was evolving from a badman to a civil rights champion during this time frame. Therefore, the celebratory tone of the record might best be explained by thinking of his fight with Billy as representing the civil rights struggle. In this case, Stagger Lee's killing of his opponent could be interpreted as being symbolic of the black man's victory in this struggle. And this triumph would certainly be a cause for celebration. (Note 4)
With the above explanation, Lloyd Price's recording of "Stagger Lee" serves as a vision of liberation from white oppression in the same way that certain slave spirituals such as "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning" served as visions of release from slavery. Writing in How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel, Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer points out that this particular spiritual and others were sung as songs of celebration in the mid-1800s when the slaves foresaw that freedom was close at hand. (Note 5) When Price recorded "Stagger Lee" in late 1958, African-Americans must have had a similar sense of anticipation of victory in the civil rights struggle; they had won several important battles (some of which will be discussed in Part 5 of this essay) and their charismatic leader Martin Luther King had emerged on the national scene. Therefore, this civil rights era recording of the old folk song--with Price's exuberant voice and the jubilant musical accompaniment--could have served as a song of release and celebration similar to spirituals such as "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning".
With this new civil rights version of "Stagger Lee", it becomes hugely important that the fight centered on the ownership of a Stetson hat. This dispute, over what might seem to be a relatively insignificant thing, is the last of the three key elements which are crucial to understanding how Stagger Lee evolved from a badman type of hero to a civil rights hero. As pointed out earlier, the other two elements--the law's fear of Stagger Lee, and his remorseless defiance at the gallows--are not present in the modern Stagger Lee records by Archibald and Lloyd Price. These elements were crucial in sustaining the legend of Stagger Lee as a badman and black hero for many years, but they are not present in these two musicians' records. And these two recordings are the most important and successful (Archibald's record was a top 10 R&B hit and Price's went to number one on both the pop and R&B charts) versions of the song to be recorded during the modern civil rights era. With these two hits, Stagger Lee's image was cleaned up and his reputation as a badman became diminished, thereby leaving the third key element--the fight over the Stetson--to become the primary focus of the story as Stagger Lee is transformed into a different kind of hero, a hero for black freedom. It is my contention that during the civil rights era, the dispute over the Stetson between Stagger Lee and Billy came to be symbolic to African-Americans of their struggle for freedom against whites. This essay now moves to an exploration of how this dispute over a hat took on such a symbolic nature.
Note 1:
Archibald broke his recording of Stagger Lee's story into two parts. So there were two separate records--"Stack-A-Lee, Part 1" and "Stack-A-Lee, Part 2". In Part 1, the badman does not suffer any consequences for his crime of shooting Billy. His punishment is relegated to Part 2, wherein he is shot and killed by the police and is sent to hell. Part 1 is the version which became a top 10 R&B hit. Therefore, most of the audience only heard Part 1 and missed the end of the story in which Stagger Lee pays the price for murdering Billy. (end of Note 1)
Note 2:
Greil Marcus, in his book Mystery Train, provides different details on what happened. Marcus writes that Dick Clark asked Price to change the lyrics to eliminate the violence before singing the song on his American Bandstand TV program. Price complied by changing the song so that it ended with apologies instead of murder. Marcus also writes that Price rerecorded the song with the new lyrics.
Note 3:
Dick Clark may have thought that Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee" contained lyrics which were too violent for his rock and roll audience, but those lyrics were faithful to the folk music roots of the song. American folk music has a long tradition of songs with lyrics that portray violence (as discussed by David Hershey-Webb in an article in the April 21, 1993 issue of The Recorder titled "Number One with a Bullet"). One of the best known examples of this is the classic murder ballad "Frankie and Albert" (also known as "Frankie and Johnny"). And "Stagger Lee" is not the only folk song to mythologize an outlaw; other songs include "Jesse James" and Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd". There is even an old folk song titled "Knoxville Girl" which makes the violent imagery of "Stagger Lee" seem like a silly nursery rhyme. It tells the story of a boy who kills his girlfriend for not being true to him. The most graphic lyrics to the song are below.
I picked a stick up off the
ground
And I knocked that fair girl
down
She fell down on her bended
knees
For mercy she did cry
Oh Willie, dear, don't kill me
here
I'm unprepared to die
I only beat her more
Until the ground around me
With her blood did flow
I took her by her golden
curls
And dragged her 'round and
'round
Then threw her into the river
That flows through Knoxville
town
The Louvin Brothers, one of the greatest groups in the history of country music, had a minor hit in 1959 with their version of "Knoxville Girl". It was the first song that they ever sang together. (end of Note 3)
Note 4:
By interpreting the song to be about the black struggle for freedom, Stagger Lee's refusal to spare Billy's life for the sake of his wife and children can be seen as serving to bring out the fact that many black families were mercilessly broken apart by slavery, and by the sending of many innocent black men and women to prison, and by the lynching of many innocent black men and women. (end of Note 4)
Note 5:
Dr. Horace Clarence Boyer, in his liner notes to the 1991 2-CD set Mahalia Jackson: Gospels, Spirituals & Hymns, provides a detailed explanation of how "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning" was a song of anticipatory celebration of the day when the slaves would be set free.