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
The greatest pop music was music of liberation: Bob Marley,
Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Public Enemy, The Clash, The Sex Pistols.
Those were pop groups that liberated an enormous amount of people to be who they
are.
--Bruce Springsteen on
Nightline/UpClose
(ABC News) July 30, 2002
Part 6: The Ultimate Rock 'n' Roll Record
Lloyd Price's recording of "Stagger Lee" may very well be the ultimate rock and roll record. What follows is my argument for why I make this claim. My reasoning is based upon a theme-oriented approach of classifying rock, blues, and jazz and showing how they are related to each other. This approach was developed by a writer named Herb Bowie and is presented in his web book titled Reason to Rock which can be accessed at www.reasontorock.com. Bowie's methodology is to look at the overriding theme of each type of music and show how they are connected to each other based on their different themes. I will explain this approach, and then, I will use its ideas to make my argument for why Price's "Stagger Lee" is the ultimate rock record.
Bowie explains that the theme of the blues is oppression. To be more specific, it is the white race's oppression of the black race. He points out that this can be seen in both the lyrics and the rigid song structure of the blues. In presenting my own argument, I will focus on the subject matter of the lyrics. When a black man sings the blues, he is not singing about being in a personal state of sadness or depression. Instead, in singing about his experiences with pain and suffering and frustration and anger, he is singing for all African-Americans about the realities of the conditions that they all face as members of the black race. The subject matter of the blues is the day to day problems of the black man living under a constant state of white oppression. For example, a particular blues song may be about not being able to pay the rent--but what is it that is really at the root of the problem of not having the money to make the payment? Brownie McGhee has pointed out, in Lawrence Redd's Rock Is Rhythm and Blues, that whiskey, women, and money may be the things he sings about in his blues, but a song of complaint about his woman doing him wrong is actually a complaint about the white man doing him wrong. Therefore, in a very elemental way, the blues is protest music--protest against oppression. "Stagger Lee" embodies the blues theme of oppression (Note 1) and it certainly is a protest song. The main reason Stagger Lee was such a legendary figure among blacks is that he was free. His badness was important because it allowed him to be a free man, to not have to answer to anyone including the white man's law. Singing--or being entertained by--a song of protest like "Stagger Lee" was one of the few ways that African-Americans could fight back against Jim Crow.
At the opposite end of the musical spectrum from the blues, we find jazz. Herb Bowie points out that the theme of this type of music is freedom. Jazz focuses upon improvisation which is practically synonymous with musical freedom. A standard jazz technique is to play a popular song and then improvise variations to the melody line. In the 1950s, avant-garde players such as Ornette Coleman took the idea of musical freedom to the extreme, creating music which is known as "free jazz".
Bowie identifies the major theme of rock music to be liberation, positioning it between the blues and jazz. He points out that the blues and jazz deal with fixed states--oppression and freedom--which are opposites of each other, while rock and roll expresses the transition between these states, moving from oppression to freedom. Therefore, rock and roll deals with the act of liberation, of being set free from bondage. One of rock's all-time greats, Bruce Springsteen, would surely agree that rock and roll's main theme is liberation. He has commented about his own life in a way that has made it clear that rock music was his means of escape, his way out, his liberating force. Many critics have interpreted his "car songs" as being about escape, and Springsteen once pointed out that the guitar was his "key to the highway". In inducting Bob Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he pointed out that the music of Elvis freed people's bodies and Dylan's freed people's minds. Clearly, Springsteen sees rock and roll as a liberating force.
Using the theme-oriented approach discussed above as the basis for my argument, I will now go on to explain why I believe that Lloyd Price's recording of "Stagger Lee" is the ultimate rock and roll record. But first, let's take a look at this record's "credentials". It was released in late 1958, and, in early 1959, it went all the way to number one on both the R&B and the pop charts. Not only that, but it was the first record made in a rock and roll style by a black man, woman, or group that went all the way to number 1 on the pop charts. At that time, the pop charts were still dominated by white musicians. Records from Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry had all broken into pop's top 10 in 1955, but Price's "Stagger Lee" was the first black rock and roll record to go all the way to number 1. (A few hits by black musicians, such as Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" and several records by The Platters became number one pop hits before "Stagger Lee", but they could not really be classified as rock and roll.) So "Stagger Lee" was a real breakthrough for black rock and roll. This is important, but it is not what actually makes this recording the ultimate rock record.
So what does make Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee" the ultimate rock and roll record? It is the ultimate rock record because it is the most fitting and greatest expression of rock's theme of liberation. Let me explain what's behind this statement. Rock and roll expresses the theme of liberation in many ways. For example, Alice Cooper's "School's Out" celebrates freedom from school, Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" deals with escape from a life with no prospects and little hope, and many, many rock songs--such as "Blue Monday" by Fats Domino, "Working for the Man" by Roy Orbison, and "Working for a Living" by Huey Lewis--stem from the desire to be set free from the burden of work. But, the ultimate expression of rock's theme of liberation--considering the fact that rock and roll developed from the blues--would have to deal with the subject of liberation from some form of oppression. Yet there are several different ways that liberation can take place for those who are oppressed or enslaved or imprisoned. For example, some benevolent force could set an enslaved or oppressed people free, as Lincoln did when he abolished slavery or as one country might liberate another from domination by a foreign power. This, in a way, parallels the type of liberation that Springsteen spoke about when he said that Elvis freed our bodies and Dylan freed our minds. Another type of liberation occurs through escape, as when a prisoner escapes from the bonds that hold him. Again, this parallels Springsteen's comments about how rock and roll provided him with a means of escape from a life that he did not care for. A third type of liberation occurs when a person who is being oppressed faces his oppressor, engages him in battle, and defeats him. This third type is the most direct, dramatic, and powerful form of liberation, making it the most fitting form for this music that we call rock and roll.
Now, let me recap and get even more specific in defining what would be the ultimate rock and roll record. Since rock and roll developed from the blues, and since the theme of the blues is the oppression of the black race by the white race, and since the theme of rock is liberation, the ultimate expression of rock and roll would be a record in which the oppressed black race liberates itself by doing battle with and defeating its white oppressors. If you agree with what has been discussed throughout this essay, you would have to conclude that Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee" is that record.
But let's say that you do not buy into my theories about the Stetson hat or about the link created between "Stagger Lee" and "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho". By looking at things from a different perspective, I can still make a solid argument for Price's "Stagger Lee" being a song about the liberation of African-Americans from white oppression, thereby making it the ultimate rock and roll record. Let me explain this other perspective. By taking "Stagger Lee"--a song which reflects and stems from the oppression of the black race by the white race--out of its blues tradition and recording it as a rock and roll song, Lloyd Price changed its theme from oppression to liberation. This transformation was brought about by Price, regardless of what his intentions were and what was going on in his conscious or subconscious mind. A song which was so deeply rooted in the tragedy and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow, and which was recorded in such a jubilant, rocking and exhilarating tone, could no longer be a blues or a song of oppression. It could only be one thing--rock and roll. And, as rock and roll, it announced an amazing turn of events--victory! Without a doubt, Lloyd Price's recording of "Stagger Lee" is the ultimate rock and roll record.
Note 1:
"Stagger Lee" is not really a blues song, it's a ballad. But it is part of the blues tradition and was sung by many bluesmen and also by songsters who were deeply influenced by the blues such as Mississippi John Hurt.