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This is, as far as I know, the first recording of this tune, which would become a standard. It’s been recorded by Milton Brown, Bob Wills, Tampa Red, Cab Calloway, Bob Dyan, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. There’s some nice mandolin on this track, I’m guessing it was played by Charlie McCoy. The fiddle sure sounds like it was played by Bo’s brother, Lonnie Chatmon. Anyone with access to a decent blues discography can feel free to correct me.

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Courtesy of Archive.org

Previous posts:
Bo Carter singing Please Warm my Weiner

In the comments to yesterday’s post about the true story behind Stack O’Lee / Stagger Lee, Michael M. hipped me to a whole lot more information about the story, including some excellent posts on his blog.

One of the most interesting chestnuts is that the house Lee Sheldon, aka ‘Stag’ Lee, lived in is still standing. Here’s a street view, courtesy of Google maps:

View Larger Map

And William Lyons is buried in St. Peter’s cemetary in Normandy, Missouri. Here’s a link to the grave:

FindAGrave.com

Check out Michael’s blog, Peripatetic Circumambulant, to dig deeper into what has become one of the most enduring ‘bad man’ songs in American music.

We’ve posted several versions of Stack O’Lee/ Stagger Lee here on the TweedBlog, so I’d like to give a little information on the true story behind one of American music’s more enduring songs. Lyons and Lee were real people and, according to news reports of the day, ‘Stag’ Lee really did shoot Lyons in an argument over a hat.

The St. Louis Globe Democrat, 1895

“William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o’clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, a carriage driver. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon’s hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Sheldon is also known as ‘Stag’ Lee”

Lyons died the day after Christmas, 1895. Missouri has a searchable database of Coroner’s records. If you want to see the page for Lyons, visit Missouri Digital Heritage. You can even order a copy of the coroner’s report.

There’s more on the song and the legend here: Stagger Lee

The intersection of 11th and Morgan doesn’t really exist anymore. Morgan in that stretch has become Convention Plaza. Here’s a Google map of the crime scene:

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Related posts:
Mississippi John Hurt playing Stack O Lee Blues
The Down Home Boys singing Original Stack O’Lee Blues

…Of course, the word ‘Original’ in the title more or less ensures that it’s not the original, but what the heck. Originality notwithstanding, this is the rarest of the rare. There is only one known copy of this recording, and it’s in Joe Bussard’s collection.

This was recorded in Chicago in 1927, and issued on the revered Black Patti label. Black Patti was unusual among so-called ‘Race’ record labels of its era in that it was black owned.

The song is one of the most enduring ‘bad man’ ballads in American music, surviving well into the rock and roll era. The prominient III chord is a ragtime artifact.

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Courtesy of Archive.org. This track is included on the Old Hat compilation CD Down in the Basement, which every American should own.

This 1924 session for Columbia is among the earlier examples of rural vernacular song on a commercial record. The song is not, as one might suspect, a minstrel song, but rather a Tin Pan Alley tune by George Cobb and Jack Yellen that passed into the oral tradition. Note that the song text is not in the mock dialect of many similar songs of that era, and the sheet music cover is rather dignified when compared to other contemporaneous publications with similar subject matter.

Are You From Dixie has since become an old-timey and bluegrass standard. Click the link at left for a high-resolution scan of the sheet music, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Thompson sings and accompanies himself on guitar and harmonica.

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Courtesy of Archive.org

This appealing side was cut on July 10, 1928 in Richmond, Indiana, for the Gennett label. It was paired with a tune from a session five days earlier (‘Somebody’s Waiting for Me’) on Gennett 6620.

The personnel:

• Herbert Sweet: fiddle;
• Earl Sweet: banjo, vocal;
• Ernest Stoneman: guitar, vocal

I don’t know much about the tune. The text seems to be a combination of verses unique to this song with commonplace stanzas. Nor do I know much about the Sweet Brothers, whose recorded output doesn’t seem to extend beyond these sessions in Richmond. I assume that they were fellow Virginians, given their work with Stoneman, but am far too lazy to verify this at the moment.

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Courtesy of Archive.org. This is included on the Old Hat compilation Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard’s Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, which I recommend unreservedly.