Stag O' Lee
Composer:
American traditional song
Genre: World / Folk
Decade: before 1923
Submitted by: Russell Ambrose
Description:
From Wikipedia:"Stagger Lee""Stack O` Lee""Stack-A-Lee"Written by TraditionalPublished 1911Language EnglishForm Murder balladOriginal artist Frank Westphal and his Regal Novelty Orchestra (1923)Recorded by Herb Wiedoeft`s Cinderella Roof Orchestra (1924)Ma Rainey (1925)Frank Hutchison (1927)Furry Lewis (1927)Mississippi John Hurt (1928)Woody Guthrie (1931; 1944)Sonny Terry (1944)Lloyd Price (1959) Wikisource has original text related to this article:Stagolee (Journal of American Folk-Lore)"Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee", "Stackerlee", "Stack O`Lee", "Stack-a-Lee" and several other variants, is a popular folk song based on the murder of William "Billy" Lyons by Stagger Lee Shelton. Herb Wiedoeft and his band recorded the song in 1924.[1]A cover with different lyrics was a chart hit for Lloyd Price in 1959; Dick Clark felt that the original tale of murder was too morbid for his American Bandstand audience, and insisted that they be changed to eliminate the murder.[2] In this version, the subject was changed from gambling to fighting over a woman, and instead of a murder, the two yelled at each other, and made up the next day. However, it was the original, unbowdlerized, version of Lloyd`s performance that reached 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was ranked 456 on Rolling Stone`s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
by: Russell Ambrose