Stagger Lee

The Song and Myth of Stagger Lee

There is a song that has been recorded by James Brown, Nick Cave and Neil Diamond.

The Clash, Pat Boone, Fats Domino, The Ventures and Bob Dylan did versions.

Duke Ellington, The Grateful Dead, Woody Guthrie, Ike & Tina Turner, Ma Rainey, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones all sang it.

On Christmas Eve, 1895, in a St. Louis saloon, "Stag" Lee Shelton, a black pimp, shot William "Billy" Lyons. Eyewitnesses say Billy snatched Stag's Stetson hat. Boom, boom, boom, boom went Stag's forty-four. You don't mess with a man's hat.

"Stagolee was, undoubtedly and without question, the baddest nigger that ever lived. Stagolee was so bad that the flies wouldn't even fly around his head in the summertime, and snow wouldn't fall on his house in the winter."
– Julius Lester, "Black Folktales."

The song tells the story of a murder...