The Historical Timeline of Stagger Lee
1951 - 1960
Important Events in the Stagger Lee Story
1955 Poet Margaret Walker records a spoken word version, "Stackalee" released on, "An Anthology of Negro Poets."
1958 The song explodes in popularity when Lloyd Price includes it as the B side to his single "You Need Love." DJs prefer to play "Stagger Lee." Sales peak at nearly 200,000 copies a day and the song shoots to #1 on the charts. Dick Clark thinks the song too violent for the American Bandstand audience. Price delivers a clean version with a happy ending. The first #1 hit to be censored. Lloyd Price is still performing. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
1959, February 14, 21 & 28 Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee" is #1 on the charts.
1959 The Collins Kids on Town Hall Party.
1960 - 1970
1960 Pat Boone covers Lloyd Price’s version but changes the chorus from "Go, Stagger Lee! Go!" to "Oh, Stagger Lee! Oh!" Pat, apparently, is not comfortable cheering on the badass black man.
1963 The Isley Brothers record it with a young Jimi Hendrix on guitar. They sing the song on live TV in the UK and create a scandal when Ron pulls a gun from his coat and mimes the shooting.
1963 A folk musicologist, Tom Hoskins, rediscovers John Hurt near Avalon, Mississippi. Hurt now begins introducing the song with a story about Stack O’Lee and Jesse James robbing a card game in a coal mine. Hoskins interviewed Hurt extensively. Hurt speaks at length about Stack O’Lee and insists he was a white man. Hurt dies in ’66.
1963 The Ventures record their instrumental Surf guitar version.
1965 Ike and Tina Turner rewrite the story as a brawl in a modern-day Go-Go bar.
1966 The Clash will cover.
1967 James Brown.
Late 60s Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, identifies himself and other black leaders as Stagger Lee characters. Seale names a son after Stagger Lee.
1970 Elvis Presley sings the song during rehearsal (caught on the "That's The Way It Is" documentary). It's officially unreleased and available only as a bootleg. He changes lyrics but clearly knows the story well. Billy’s "three little children and a very sickly wife" become "three hundred little children and a very horny wife."