Hello, My Name is Stagger Lee

The above is an adorable music video for Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee,” that puts the fun back into back alley gambling and murder.

In 1959, Lloyd Price turned a traditional folk and blues song into a major hit for himself. His song, “Stagger Lee” (later to be ranked by Rolling Stone as the 456th greatest song of all time) brought the legendary title character into the mainstream of American culture. Stagger Lee, also known as Stack-O-Lee, Stack O’Lee, Stag-O-Lee, and numerous other variations, has inspired at least 284 recordings ranging from instrumental to a cappella and from jazz to reggae. His story in song and folklore, seems endlessly varied. Yet, as big as Stagger Lee’s story is, the story of Lee Shelton, his real life inspiration, is in some ways even larger.

Lee Shelton¹ was born on March, 16, 1865 in Texas, in the last days of the Civil War. By 1895, at the age of 30, he had established himself in St. Louis, MO. Lee was a man of many trades. He worked as a carriage driver, an occasional waiter, a pimp, and the owner of a tavern and gambling house known as The Modern Horseshoe. He was also apparently active in politics, as the head of a club for the Democratic Party.

On Christmas night, 1895, Shelton walked into a saloon owned by Bill Curtis in an area of St. Louis known then as “Deep Morgan.” There Shelton began conversing with the unlucky Billy, one William Lyons. Lyons worked as a levee hand, his age was either 25 (given in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat) or 31 (as listed on his death certificate). He and Shelton conversed in a friendly manner for some time, until the conversation turned to politics. The two men began to argue, hitting one another’s hats until eventually Lyon’s took Shelton’s Stetson hat. Shelton drew his .44, hitting Lyons with it. When Lyon drew a knife, “Stagger Lee,” so the song goes, “shot Billy.”

Lee Shelton returned to his home with his hat. He was arrested around 3 am. William Lyons lingered on at City Hospital until an hour after Shelton’s arrest.

While there 4 other murders took place that Christmas night in St. Louis, Shelton’s gained a peculiar prominence. His slaying of William Lyons came to symbolize the political and economic tensions within St. Louis’ African American community. Lyons had powerful connections. His brother-in-law, Henry Bridgewater, was a wealthy and prominent black Republican. He ran the Bridgewater Saloon only a few blocks from Curtis’ saloon. While Cutis’ saloon catered to lower class Democrats, the Bridgewater was a Republican stronghold that served a more upscale clientele and even garnered the occasional black celebrity.

Shelton soon found himself embroiled in a political feud that transcended a mere bar fight. When he was taken to the coroner’s inquest the next day, Shelton was confronted with a crowd of approximately 300 angry blacks, most likely connected to Bridgewater. Bridgewater himself agitated for prosecution of Shelton and hired the Assistant Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, Orrick Bishop, to head the case.

Not to be out done, Shelton used his own powerful connections to wrangle up a prominent lawyer for himself. He had engaged the services of Nat Dryden, a brilliant, opium-addicted alcoholic. Despite his substance abuse problems, Dryden had a reputation for winning difficult cases and had even secured Missouri’s first conviction of a white man for killing a black man. By the fourth of January, Shelton had managed to raise $4,000 and bailed himself out of jail. On July 15, 1896, the trial began. After two days of trial and twenty-two hours of deliberation, the jury was hung. Lee Shelton was a free man, at least until his retrial.

In the interim, Dryden died on August 26, 1897, after a drinking binge. That October, after being convicted in his second trial, Shelton was confined in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City for a twenty-five year term.

Shelton was not to serve that full term, however, and was released in November, 1909, with the aid of fellow Democrats. His regained freedom would do him little good. In January, 1911, Shelton robbed a man and returned to prison that May for a five-year sentence. Once again Shelton would not serve his full term. In 1912, after a failed attempt by Missouri’s Democratic governor to have him paroled, Shelton succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Despite his ignoble end, Lee Shelton’s political career did not cease with his death. Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party and one of the Chicago 8, gave his son the name Malik Nkrumah Staggerlee Seale. For Seale, Stagger Lee represented the untrained, unfocused resistence of oppressed African Americans, which could be transformed into the focused, organized resistance of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X.

Though Stagger Lee continues to live on² in popular culture, Lee Shelton himself was buried in an unmarked grave in Greenwood Cemetery³ in Hillsdale, MO, just outside of St. Louis.

The Mississippi John Hurt verison of Stagger Lee.

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1. Shelton’s name is also occasionally given as Sheldon, as it appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat article that detailed his shooting of William Lyons.

2. Fittingly, in 2004, ex-pimp Fillmore Slim recorded a version of “Stagger Lee” on his album Funky Mama’s House. His story was also made into a graphic novel by Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix.

3. If you’re interested in visiting his grave site, there’s more information about it here and here. You can also visit his house and the former site of Bill Curtis’ Saloon.

For more on Lee Shelton/Stagger Lee:
http://www.planetslade.com/stagger-lee1.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2003/may/09/artsfeatures
http://www.geocities.com/blueskat2000/stagger_lee_home.htm
http://media.riverfronttimes.com/938483.0.pdf
http://www.stackolee.net/public/onepage

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2007-06-27/news/the-story-of-stagger-lee
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/68016/the_lee_sheldonwilliam_lyons_story.html?cat=33
http://bobshannon.com/stories/Stagger.html
http://www.kwur.com/blog/2009/02/stagger-lee.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagger_Lee_Shelton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagger_Lee_(song)