And here is the tape of David interviewing Ed McKinney, an elderly musician with an encyclopedic knowledge of St. Louis history. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. Whats dat he killed him wid? "Billy Lyons" redirects here. The story was first covered in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on December 28th, 1895. In 2007, Samuel L. Jackson played Stack-O-Lee in the movie Black Snake Moan, backed by Cedrick Burnside and Kenny Brown. The historical Lee Shelton was an African American man born in 1865 in Texas. A question that almost everyone who writes about Stagolee eventually takes up is, Why are we still talking about this particular murder? In the 1920s, a number of varieties of Stagger Lee began to be recorded. In 2006, Image Comics published the graphic novel Stagger Lee, written by Derek McCulloch and illustrated by Shepherd Hendrix, examining the historical murder of Lyons by Shelton, and the folklore that came out of it, in the framing setting of a fictionalized version of the African-American community in Saint Louis. Sheltonalias Stack Leewould be memorialized in song, becoming perhaps the most significant figure in African-American folklore. Stuke played Matthew in the second and third series of Game On, replacing Ben Chaplin. But the best-known versions of Stagolee sound nothing like one another; theres no signature melody or even a common refrain to lodge in the cultural consciousness. My condolences to all who loved you. Billy, and I met in in high school in 1964 which would begin a life long close friendship. During his field recordings, John Lomax oftenrecordedthe Stagger Lee song by various groups in the American South, from Texas to theAppalachia, often times in prisons. We deeply regret the situation into which our unfortunate brother has fallen.. William and Lena Lyons, the childrens parents listed on the baptism record, were not present. Uncharacteristically, David included no footnote, although the heavily hand-edited page is clearly not from a final draft. All of his Stagolee researchboxes of criminal complaints, prison records, clippings, correspondence, photographs, floppy disks, and audio tapeshad been sitting in a St. Louis basement ever since. Billy has 1 job listed on their profile. Date: December 25, 1895 Location: St. Louis, Missouri Victim: William "Billy" Lyons Cause of Death: Gunshot Accused: "Stack" Lee Shelton Recording: "Stack O'Lee Blues" - Mississippi John Hurt "Staggerlee" - Lloyd Price Synopsis: Stack Lee Shelton was the owner of a St. Louis saloon/brothel called the Modern Horseshoe Club and was a well-known figure in the black neighborhood of Deep Morgan. He always addresses Stagolee, and its always some version of the same two-sentence appeal: Please dont take my life. Through every generation and nearly every musical style, Stagger Lee has made an appearance. From 1982 to 1984, two masked professional wrestlers were billed as Stagger Lee in the Southern US; Sylvester Ritter, better known as Junkyard Dog, played him first in Mid-South Wrestling and James Ware, who became Koko B. Ware, followed suit in the Continental Wrestling Association. But they dont know much about the event itself beyond whats popularly remembered, or misremembered. Click To Watch Free 'NAACP Image Awards 2023' Live Stream. Stack Lee died of tuberculosis on March 11, 1912, five days shy of his 47th birthday. There can be no doubt that Susie Mae Myles and Arthur Buddy Johnson were the great-grandchildren of Billy Lyons. As so many have already learned and been praying, my brother in law, Billy Coile, went fishing alone Saturday afternoon and has not returned. Another version was recorded later that year by Frank Westphal & His Regal Novelty Orchestra, and Herb Wiedoeft and his band recorded the song in 1924. Its no coincidence that Stagolee faded from African-American folklore just as a new wave of well-dressed bad muthafuckas arrived on the scene, also rolling Cadillacs. Handy wrote that it probably was a nickname for a tall person, comparing him to the tall smokestack of the large steamboat Robert E. [8], The song tradition embellishes the story with sometimes inaccurate or fantastic details. Despite what had come to seem like long odds, when the spindles finally turned, the sounds that emerged were intelligible: Yes, I remember Stackalee, McKinney says, and David clearly thinks hes referring to the song. A truly great friend to all and a caring cop! Geoffrey O'Hara: February 2, 1882 January 31, 1967 Canadian Singer and songwriter. In John Russell Davids papers I found whats almost certainly the oldest published sheet musicStack-O-Lee (A True Story From Life), copyright 1910, by the cringe-worthily named Three White Kuhns. He owned one of the tenderloins more notorious nightspots, the Modern Horseshoe Club, and presumably used his job as carriage driver to direct white visitors emerging from Canal Streets Southern Railroad Station to his nightclub, the local bordellos, or directly to girls whose activities he personally oversaw. All rights reserved, The Real Story Behind That Bad Man "Stagger Lee". Cecil Brown, author of 2003's Stagolee Shot Billy, has used the witness statements from Lyons' inquest to compile an account of the night's events. Reluctantly, I admit to having doubts about their great-grandfathers being that Billy Lyons. Billy "Spacey" Lyons is an Actor, Musician, Tattoo Artist and Motor. The murder, reportedly motivated partially by the theft of Shelton's Stetson hat, made Shelton an icon of toughness and style in the minds of early folk and blues musicians, and inspired the popular folk song "Stagger Lee." At one point, David asks Myles when she first heard the family story about Stack Lee and Billy, and she says, Well, a song came out. When he invites Johnson to share the familys version of the legend, Johnson singsin a beautiful, mournful voicethe lyrics to Lloyd Prices number-one hit. The historical Stagger Lee was Lee Shelton, an African American pimp living in St. Louis, Missouri, in the late 19th century. He died in incarceration in 1912. In 1892, after he was detained for robbing a woman with whom hed been living, the Globe-Democrat called him notorious. The denizens of the Bloody Third probably just called him a bad man.. Billy Lyons actor at billy lyons Dublin e Regio. Good Baby Films, Peter Garafalo, Motomu Ishigaki, Billy Lyons, Pamela Ford, David B. Ford, Kelly Gonda, Lou Gonda, Kasey Cunningham, Seth Isler, Krista Liney, Nick Solan, Susan Jane Sullivan, Dominic J. DeJoseph, Kim Ferraro, Seth Isler. Despite the tendency of folktales to grow taller, the canonical Stagolee story has remained impressively stable over the years: Stagolee is a bad man who objects to Billy Lyonss stealing his Stetson. Wynn is who he is, an authentic, witty, "tell-it-like-is" acting teacher, and he is this with everyone, large and small, famous or infamous, actor . It has long been known that Lee Shelton was listed as married on his death certificate. Today were bringing you another entry in American Blues Scenes exclusive Brief History of a Song series. Physically, he was unprepossessing. He was a native . He will be missed! Mississippi John Hurt, Cab Calloway, Woody Guthrie, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, and Beck are among the hundreds who have sung a version of Stagolees story. [15], Lloyd Price recorded the song as "Stagger Lee" in 1958, and it rose to the top of both the R&B and US pop charts in early 1959. This did not impede him from building cribs in back of his house, where some of his girls conducted business under his watchful eye. OnChristmasEve, 1895, a shooting occurred in a North St. Louis saloon that was destined to find a prominentand permanentplace in American oral tradition. Who was Stagger Lee, who goes by different names depending on the storyteller;Stagger, Stack-O-Lee, Stackalee, etc.? He told me when we were young that some day he would be a Sac PD police officer just like his Dad. Angela Discon. On Feb. 26, 1993, a truck bomb built by Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of the North Tower of New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. . Hilary Mantel, one of Britains most revered novelists, died last year at the age of 70. Because somebody wrote a catchy song, its tempting to say. On the trail of a historical figure immortalized in African-American folklore, On Christmas night 1895, at Bill Curtiss notorious St. Louis saloon, a gun-toting carriage driver named Lee Shelton shot and killed his friend William Lyons. Billy is an actor, director, teacher, and producer living in midtown Manhattan, where hes trained with and been the close assistant to Wynn Handman for many years. It had remained latent in his lungs for several years, but the chemotherapy he needed for a bone marrow transplant weakened his immune system, forcing him to take an enervating TB medicine. She is beloved for her sweeping. It Takes a Lunatic is his first film. Billy Lyons is a producer and director, known for It Takes a Lunatic (2019), Missed Connections Live (2009) and Lost Bohemia (2010). W.C. According to the lines in the song, it was over a game of chance: In fact, if the local newspapers are to be credited, the altercation was political in nature. Sheltons case was retried in 1897, and Stagger Lee was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the notorious Jeffersonpenitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri. . The version by Mississippi John Hurt, recorded in 1928, is regarded by many as definitive. [7], Shortly after the event, the murder became the subject of folk song tradition, known as "Stagolee," "Stagger Lee," and other variants. Interestingly, a single news item from 1896 includes the name of Stack Lees girlfriend, and its Lillie Moore. Get the latest creative news from Blues Scene about music & art. [8] The song was well known in African American communities along the lower Mississippi River by 1910. David Lyons (actor) 17 languages. June 4, 2022 Episode #17 of the Motorcycle Knuckle Busters podcast. He teaches creative writing at Washburn University and is a former poet laureate of Kansas. RIP Officer Lyonsyou will be missed! Police officer, how can it be? In 1896, the political scene was extremely tense, and with Saint Louis being one of the largest cities in the country, it was necessary for politicians to get every vote, including the black vote. Episode #17 of the Motorcycle Knuckle Busters podcast. He has touched so many lives. I think the answer to this question (and to the related question of what Stagolee tells us about how legends and folklore are passed down) may lie in the social function that Stagolee serves. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Punk, Hawaiian, HeavyMetal, Disco, Rock, Blues, Folk, Bluegrass, Country, and Soul have all seen recorded versions, often with great popularity and by names as wildly famous as Elvis and the Isley Brothers. Nov 2020 - Present2 years 4 months. Luxury The Future of Auctions Might Rely on . Upon Sheltons arrival in St. Louis he will at once report to Mr. James D. Anderson. It never came to that. They include such exalted artists as Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, James Brown, Fats Domino, Peggy Lee, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Carl Sandburg, Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, Pete Seeger, Ike and Tina Turner, Nick Cave, Amy Winehouse, Taj Mahal, Wilson Pickett, Elton John, Leon Russell, the Grateful Dead, Huey Lewis, Beck, the Black Keys, and the Clash. Odum. The film begins in Hugo, Oklahoma. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. They both believe, for example, that Stack and Billy were fighting over a craps gamea canard that made its way into the songs after being falsely reported by the papers. In their New Book of Rock Lists, Dave Marsh and James Bernard name 15 Sons of Stagger LeeRecords That Would Be Inconceivable Without Him, including the Geto Boys Mind of a Lunatic, Cypress Hills How I Could Just Kill a Man, and Ice Cubes The Na You Love to Hate.. After his release, the man who once shot Billy Lyons continued his villainous ways and, after several run-ins with the law, once again found himself sitting in a penitentiary cell. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. A version by Lloyd Price reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. Author and music critic Greil Marcus explicitly ties the Stagger Lee archetype to Sly Stone and his album There's a Riot Goin' On in his book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music. He was 80 years old. But more importantly, he had the kindest soul of anyone I've ever known. It is virtually impossible to predict what people or events will be caught up in the myth-making machine and what will simply fall by the way. To find a largely comprehensive documentation of 420+ Stagger Lee recordings, see StaggerLee.com. Director Billy Lyons' documentary on Handman, It Takes A Lunatic, premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and is airing on Netflix. In January 1896, according to a Post-Dispatch item that escaped the notice of earlier researchers, a young woman named Stella Casey took her own life by swallowing a box of rat poison. Billy was the best of the best at Sac PD. But over the past several years, through services like Newspapers.com and Ancestry.com, huge caches of relevant documents have become broadly availableand, crucially, keyword-searchablefor the first time. Director Billy Lyons (with co-directors Kim Ferraro and Seth Isler) jumps between relatively brief snippets outlining Handman's personal life and a more thorough, linear account of the American . 1895 - "Stag" Lee Sheldon killed his friend Billy Lyons over a drunken political argument. Mr. William Hunter "Billy" Lyons, a native of Mobile and resident of Spanish Fort, died Tuesday, June 8, 2021, of complications from a stroke. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. He was also booked at various times for stealing a gold watch, carrying brass knuckles, and getting caught in an opium joint. And they were acquainted with the story of Stagolee, but as legend, not family history. He's a proud member of AEA. Heres a handwritten letter from Billy Lyonss sister and mother, pleading with the governor to deny Stack Lee a pardon. In bars, barbershops, and prisons, he remained the baddest n who ever lived, the antihero of profane epics and rhyming toasts whose exploits offered a fantasy of freedom from lifes indignities. [citation needed], Stagger Lee has become an archetype with some Black people who admire the gangster type; a parallel to the glorification of the outlaw by a section of mainstream society. John Russell David died almost exactly 75 years later at almost exactly the same agejust a few months past his 47th birthday. Dat same ole fohty-fo. Heres the original arrest warrant. Researchers have tended to write that off as a likely error, though, since he was single at the time of his incarceration, according to penitentiary records. Here is some more Gallagher goodness for you all. The police and Coast Guard have been involved in search and rescue since Sunday morning but . Stagolees work is done, too. Lee Sheldon is also known as 'Stag' Lee. Duke Ellington recorded a version in 1927, and in 1928 Mississippi John Hurt recorded what is perhaps the most famous and most definitive version of Stagger Lees song in history. From there, dozens andeventuallyhundreds of recorded renditions of Stacks story were spawned. In 1987, retirement called and the two leased the restaurant for 25 years to a new owner, while retaining ownership of the . Dallas Theater Center in Dallas produced an original musical with an adaptation of the folklore around Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons. 1991-present. David Lyons was in Nine Network police drama called Sea Patrol and he was playing Leading Seaman Josh Holiday in the first series of the show since 2007 up to 2009. Oh dat man, bad man, Stagolee done come. The quartet included Hugh Bradley, Marty Hale and Bill Lyons. Some of these recordings can be found at the Library of Congress. Phi Beta Kappa 244 West 54th Street, 10th Floor Actor; Teaching Actor American Place Theatre 2006 - Present17 years Performer of APT's Literature to Life adaptation of Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They. Bill was The Best! With the growing flood of immigration of poor Southern blacks in the decades following the Civil War, the black sections of town quickly began to overflo . A Johnson `64 classmate who will be missed by all of us. That its murder in the first degree? At the turn of the century, with emancipation receding into memory, African Americans were confronting the new limits of their liberty in a poisonously racist country. The origins of this tale begin with a Christmas Eve bar fight in Saint Louis in 1895. The events of the murder were fairly commonplace; two friends, Billy Lyons and Stagger Lee Shelton, were drinking at Bill Curtiss saloon and became enthralled in a conversation about politics. He was paroled in 1909, but returned to prison in 1911 for assault and robbery. It was not unheard of, in other words, for the days news to pass from fact into folklore almost instantaneously, trapping many authentic details in the amber.
Jarrad Paul Leaves Monk,
Does Allstate Insurance Cover Windshield Replacement,
Articles B