Mississippi John Hurt - Stack O'Lee Blues
The Hidden Handshake
The deep, dark, blues skeleton key started, as these things do, with a murder in St. Louis in 1895. Dear readers, you can believe the songs, the folk tales, the apocryphal stories, or whatever you choose including a bouillabaisse of each to make your soul happy. I’ll respect your choice, no matter what. The pitfalls of folklore, like Indiana Jones once discussed, require a healthy understanding of mythology, folklore, and genuine history. These don’t always coincide and often run into conflict, but that’s all okay.
This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
-Maxwell Scott, as written by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Our lead character is Lee Shelton, a part-time carriage driver and full-time pimp in St. Louis. Known commonly as Stag or Stagger or Stack because he frequently went stag to social events or because he was fond of drinking until he began to swagger or, according to ethnomusicologists Alan and John Lomax, he took the name from a riverboat owned by the Lee family of Memphis called the Stack Lee which was renowned for on-board prostitution. Ol’ Stack was also a member of the Macks, a pimp collective known for their style and appearance.
This is Goldie, a different Mack.
On Christmas night, 1895, Stack found himself in the Bill Curtis Saloon, face-to-face with another underworld figure, Billy Lyons—or maybe it was Billy DeLyons, depending on which paper you read. They had a spat, Billy grabbed Stack’s Stetson, and Stack shot him dead for his trouble. He took back his hat, Billy bled out, and by 1897, Stack was behind bars for murder. He got out on parole in 1909, but two years later, he was back in the joint for assault and robbery. He died in prison in 1912, taking the real story of "Stack O'Lee" with him.
Stack’s murder of Billy quickly entered into American folklore as frequently happens in America. A song called Stack-a-Lee was first mentioned in 1897, in the Kansas City Leavenworth Herald, as being performed by "Prof. Charlie Lee, the piano thumper.” By 1910, the song was already whispering its way along the Mississippi, likely born from the sweat and sorrow of slave laborers. John Lomax, with his ear for the raw and the real, caught wind of it, jotting down what he could. In 1911, Howard W. Odum, the sociologist, put two versions on paper.
In 1923, Waring's Pennsylvanians recorded it, turning the tune into a hit. Others followed — Frank Westphal, Herb Wiedoeft. But it wasn’t until 1924 that the song found its voice in Skeeg-a-Lee Blues. The tune, now known as Stack O'Lee, started making its rounds with names like Ma Rainey, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington giving it their spin. Mississippi John Hurt’s 1928 rendition — gritty, raw, and definitive — would cement the song’s place in history.
And then Mississippi John’s take took on life as a secret handshake, a blues Rosetta Stone among musicians interested in such matters. Folk music is a prism, and when one looks through that prism it offers unique views of society’s unique, indigenous cultures. The blues lends itself to all manner of music, and all manner of musicians took notice of Stack O’Lee Blues.
Lloyd Price recorded his blistering rendition in late ‘58 and hit number one on the R&B and pop charts in early ‘59 with it. Fats Domino did it, Ike and Tina Turner turned in a version befitting their rollicking style, some man frequently referred to as the Godfather of Soul did it. Bluegrass iconoclast Doc Watson did a version, as did those merry pranksters the Grateful Dead between aceing electric Kool-Aid acid tests. Pacific, Gas & Electric did a fantastic version in 1970 used by Quentin Tarantino in his 2007 grindhouse flick Death Proof. Bob Dylan, Huey Lewis & The News, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond… for the love of all things holy Pat fucking Boone did a version, and so did screen icon Samuel L. Jackson in 2006’s Black Snake Moan. He does a take on R. L. Burnside’s version with Burnside’s grandson on drums. That’s really Mr. Motherfucker himself on vocals and geetar.
In 1967, Trojan Records—a name that would come to define reggae—dropped a rocksteady number called "Wrong’em Boyo" by The Rulers.
Stagger Lee met Billy and they got down to gambling
Stagger Lee throwed seven
Billy said that he throwed eight
So Billy said, hey Stagger!
I'm gonna make my big attack
I'm gonna have to leave my knife in your back-The Rulers, Wrong’em Boyo
Fast forward to 1979, and my boys, The Clash, turned The Rulers track into a working-class anthem on their sprawling masterpiece London Calling. It wasn’t just the rhythm that hooked Joe Strummer; it was the defiance, the fight for the little guy. Twenty years later, The Black Keys took a swing at it, calling their version Stack Shot Billy on Rubber Factory. Endorsed without hesitation.
Somewhere along the line, Nick Cave stumbled upon a 1967 transcription of the lyrics in a 1976 book titled The Life: The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler. He rounded up his Bad Seeds and laid down a version on Murder Ballads that’s so raw, so filthy, it’s practically dripping with sin. The track’s as X-rated as they come, soaked in the kind of darkness that only Cave can conjure.
The details of the tale — whether it’s Stack O’Lee or Billy —shift with every retelling. The weapon changes, too, but none of that matters. The song’s a skeleton key, unlocking a blues world kept hidden from prying eyes.
You want to play in this league, kid? You’d better know the story of Stagger Lee.
The song exists as a prism itself to examine the entirety of the American songbook. Murder tales only grow and strengthen as the inexorable march of time continues. Beyond that, the staying power of Stack or Stagger Lee extends beyond. It’s become an entrenched piece of America speaking to and for the ineffable. Get a load of Percival Everett’s Erasure — and its film adaptation, American Fiction. Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a Black lit professor, gets fed up with the sensationalized trash passing for literature. He writes a satire under the pseudonym "Stagg R. Leigh," calling it Fuck. It’s meant to be a joke, but when everyone takes it seriously, it blows up, and Monk’s left to deal with the fallout. It’s a cautionary tale about the power of a name, a story, and the indelible mark of Stagger Lee on the American psyche.
Noted lecturer, novelist, and educator Cecil Brown makes note of two quotes that perhaps most accurately place Lee Shelton and his legend in the American lexicon. The first comes to us from the masterful Richard Wright, author of Native Son.
There is… a culture of the Negro which is his and has been addressed to him; a culture which has, for good or ill, helped to clarify his consciousness and create emotional attitudes which are conducive to action. This culture has stemmed mainly from two sources: (1) the Negro church; and (2) the folklore of the Negro people.
-Richard Wright, 1957
Richard Wright’s quote lays it out straight: there’s a culture specific to Black America, built for and by Black America. This culture isn’t just background noise; it’s shaped the mind and stirred up feelings that push toward action. Two things have been the bedrock of this culture: the Black church and the folklore passed down through generations.
The church has given Black America a sense of community and moral grounding, a place to find strength when the world outside is ready to crush. Meanwhile, the folklore — stories, songs, and traditions — has kept the past alive, making sure the lessons learned from hard times aren’t forgotten. These two forces have worked together, sharpening awareness and preparing him for the struggles ahead. Lee Shelton was a Black man. Stagger Lee is a wholly powerful part of American folklore that can and has become an avatar that promotes, indeed causes action, for good or ill. Stagger Lee does whatever the fuck he wants. Having a gun in one’s hand helps manifest desire. The second quote comes to us not from a Black man, but a devotee of the Church of American Folklore. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, he is known throughout the known galaxy as Bob Dylan.
What does the song (Stagolee) say exactly?… It says no man gains immortality thru public acclaim.
-Bob Dylan, 1993
Dylan’s take on the Stagolee tale cuts through the surface and digs into the marrow. Sure, Stagolee’s a notorious figure, a man whose name still echoes in back alleys and smoky bars, but Dylan sees something deeper. He’s saying that chasing after fame or trying to carve your name into the public’s memory is a fool’s game.
Stagolee might’ve earned a flash of fame for his cold-blooded ways, but that kind of notoriety doesn’t last. Dylan’s point is clear: true immortality—the kind that sticks around after the spotlight’s faded—doesn’t come from the headlines or the whispers on the street. It’s something more substantial, more meaningful. Maybe it’s in the ripple effects of a man’s actions, or the lessons his story leaves behind.
In the end, Dylan’s telling us that public acclaim is as thin as cigarette smoke; it disappears fast, leaving nothing solid behind. The reason Stagolee’s legend keeps hanging around isn’t because the man was chasing fame, but because his story carries the weight of something bigger — something that speaks to the dark corners of human nature, to justice, rebellion, and the things that really matter when the lights go out.
So there you have story that’s grown legs and kept walking for over a century, twisting and turning through the American consciousness. Stagolee’s tale isn’t just a footnote in the dusty pages of history — it’s a living, breathing beast that still commands attention. The man himself, Lee Shelton, might’ve died in a cell, but Stagolee, the legend, is very much alive.
It’s a story that’s been passed around, each teller adding their version, each tweaking the details until the line between fact and fiction is all but erased. But that’s the point, isn’t it? The truth of Stagolee isn’t in the headlines or the court records; it’s in the way his story has sunk its claws into the fabric of America. It’s in the blues, in the way we understand power, rebellion, and the lengths a man will go to get what he thinks is his.
In the end, Stagolee isn’t just a song or a legend — he’s a reflection of something deeper, something that runs through America’s veins, whether we like to admit it or not. And like Dylan said, no man gains immortality through public acclaim. But Stagolee? He’s more than a man. He’s a symbol, an idea, and those don’t die easy. They stick around, long after the smoke clears and the bodies are buried.