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Title: Stagolee Shot Billy : by Cecil Brown ISBN: 0-674-01056-6 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Who Was Stagolee?
Comment: If you listen to American blues, rock, or folk music, you've heard about Stagolee. The Grateful Dead, the Clash, John Hurt, and dozens of others told a story about the night Stagolee shot Billy in a bar fight. The words may have varied, and the story may have seemed archetypical, but there was something going on here. Cecil Brown has traced the story to its origins: a bar in St. Louis's red light district in 1895, when Lee Shelton gunned down Billy Lyons because Lyons had touched his hat. Brown has done the research and provides interesting insights into urban culture and race relations in a time and place not far removed from slavery. He reviews different variations of the song, looks into the lives of the real-life protagonists, and discusses why the story made such a good source for songs for the next hundred years.
Rating: 5
Summary: Baad Dude Wins Again
Comment: Anyone with even a slight acquaintance with the blues knows that Stagolee killed Billy Lyons over a brand-new Stetson hat. Stagolee thus became the prototypic baaad dude, the player who would coolly kill a man over fancy headgear. Until now, however, no one knew the real story, and most of us blues fans wondered if either of the gentlemen existed. In truth, "Stack" Lee Shelton shot Billy Lyons in a barroom in the red-light district of St. Louis on Christmas Day, 1895. The ballad, now known in hundreds of versions, must have emerged soon afterward.
Cecil Brown has researched the full story--he even provides pictures of the death certificates. He situates the event in its full and rowdy context: the roaring, wide-open world of Mississippi River towns in the late 19th century, when liquor, prostitution, gambling, and violence were the order of the day. He goes on to trace the song through its long and chequered history; central to the blues, it has been enthusiastically adopted by hillbilly and folk singers, rockers, and many more.
Good studies of folklore have been rare lately. The glorious days of the 1960s folk revival are long over. It is thus doubly rewarding to see a really fine study of folk tradition. This book focuses on the literature side; it does not deal with the music (someone should write a companion volume). Brown does an excellent job of interpretation, bringing in just enough theory, not too much. His generalizations are useful and interesting. (I don't agree with "Publisher's Weekly"'s sour comments at the end of their note.) The world needs more books like this. I not only got stuck in it and read it in one sitting--I then sought out my worn old record of Long Cleve Reed and Papa Harvey Hull's superb performance from the 1920's, and played it three times over.
Right on, Cecil Brown.
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Title: Platform by Michel Houellebecq ISBN: 0375414622 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Rumble, Young Man, Rumble : Stories by Benjamin Cavell ISBN: 0375414649 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 20 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Boogaloo : The Quintessence of American Popular Music by Arthur Kempton ISBN: 0375406123 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Poker Face : A Girlhood Among Gamblers by Katy Lederer ISBN: 0609608983 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald ISBN: 0060524235 Publisher: Amistad Press Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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