Stagolee Shot Billy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
WEEKS Stagolee Shot BillY Cecil Brown Ilarvard UniYersitY Pre ss Cambridge, Massachusetrs, and London' England CONTENTS 14. Work Camps,Hoboes, and ShackBully Hollers ra1 15. rVilliam Marion Reedy's\Vhite Oudaw r29 16. Cowboy Sragoleeand Hillbilly Blues 134 r7. Blueswomen: StagoleeDid Them Wrong r44 18. Bluesmen and Black Bad Man r48 19. On rhe Trail of Sinful Sragolee r57 20. Sragoleein a World Full of Trouble I63 Introduction: Tbe Iniition of Stegolee zr. From Rhythm and Blues to Rock and Roll: "I Heard My Bulldog Bark,, 172 zz. The Toasr: Bad Black Hero of the There is . a culture of che Negro which is his and has been Black Revolurion 177 23. Folklore/Poplore: addressedto him; a cuhure which has, for good or ill, helped ro BobDylan,s Sragolee r84 clari$' his consciousnessand creare emocional arcirudes which TII. MAMMY-MADE: STAGOLEE AND AMERICAN IDENTITY are conducive to acrion. This culture has stemmed mainly from 24. two sources: (r) the Negro church; and (z) the folklore of the The "Bad Nigger,,Tropein American Liserarure 193 25. ,,Sraggerlee Negro people. James Baldwin,s Wonders,' zo6 26. Sragolee political -RICI{ARD WRrcHT, rg57 as Cultural and Hero 2r2 22. Scagolee and Modernism 2r7 What does the [Stagolee] song say exacdy? . Ir says no man Notes gains immortaliry thru public acclaim. 23r -BOB DYLAN, rgg3 Bibliography z6t Index 287 WniU I was growing up on a cobacco farm in North Carolina in the lare r95os and early r96os, rhe most imporrant leg- end to me was thar of Stagolee. As chanted in rhe form of a ,,toast,, by Uncle Lindsey, rhe nrrrrarive presented a young god of viril- ^y ity. In those days, ro young black field hands sitting in rhe shade of a tree at the end of the cobacco road, Stagolee was as impulsive, as vulgar, as daring, and as advenrurous as they wanted him (and ;OLEE SHOT BILLY INTRODUCTION themselves) to be. My uncles, who were my rnale role models, and about Stagolee.The legend survives becauseblack men pass it on. their friends recited their rhymed, obscenepraise of Stagolee'sbad- As culture critic Greil Marcus observes,Sragolee "is a story that ness.At the end of rhe day che same men gathered in C. Himes,s J. black America has never tired of hearing and never scopped living jook joinr to dance wirh rhe girls, drink whiskey, and fight. Their out, like whites with rheir'W'esterns."2 noccurnal accivities,I thought, were an exrension of Stagolee,s. Black people hold Stagolee before them like a charcer whose As I grew up, I realized rhat many orher young black men also meaning is implicic. The comment "He's just another Scagolee"in knew Stagolee. In fact interest in Stagolee is widespread among reference to the actions of a well-known black figure evokes the black men rhroughour America, nor just on southern farms and in black male ethos. The orher person might reply, "There's no shame industrialized northern gherros bur also in oklahoma, Monrana in Sragolee's game." Stagolee is an in-group carchword conveying and California. knowledge of what it means to be a black man. A well-known black The origins of rhe Stagolee legend coincide wirh the origins painter told me rhat it is impossible to undersrand what Stagoleeis of the blues in the r89os. The legend had irs firsr expression as abouc until one understands that Sragolee "wouldn't allow any- a field holler of former plantarion slaves as rhey migrated, ro the body to 'touch' his hat." He emphasized "couch" wirh a grear deal levee camps along the Mississippi. From there the legend moved ro of body language, imicating Stagolee's own taboo against anyone's southern prisons, where it was honed and shaped into a work song. putting a hand on his apparel. Stagolee also expressedthe worldview and feelings of poor white Enslaved Africans might have recognized Scagoleeas a varianc of hillbillies, who adopced the legend as one of their own. ..Stagolee,,,r Shango, the Yoruba deiry of thunder. But che ballad of Stagolee Carl Sandburg loved singing and wrirers such as didn't come inro existence until 1895, after one Lee Shelton, a Gwendolyn Brooks, Howard Odum, Richard Wright, and. James rhirry-one-year-old resident of St. Louis, shot one William Lyons. Baldwin have used rhe song as a model for shorr stories, poems, The field hollers and field blues predared che ballad. Like other and plays. Duke Ellington and Sidney Bechet arranged. and per_ slave verbalizations, the field hollers and slave ballads concained el- formed versions of it, and more recenrly Sragoleehas been the sub- ements of protest. Some were about escaped slaves,like the one ject of a musical comedy. about "St. Malo," a rebellious slavewho was hanged.3Thus, before Sragolee is a mecaphor rhat srrucrures rhe life of black males the murder of Billy Lyons in 1895,there were probably already sev- from childhood through marurity. I have heard. versions of it, spo_ eral ballads with whar folklorisr David Evans calls "floating stan- ken and sung, many times during and since childhood., and rhe zas" that expressed themes similar to those found in the Stagolee core lmage conrinues ro have meaning for me in middle age. Nor ballad. Charles Haffer, of Coahama Counry Mississippi, recalled long ago I recited a few sranzas of rhe ballad to my eighr_year_old having first heard of a Stagoleeballad in r895.aAs a ballad, Stagolee nephew Lionel, and soon afterward he asked me ro tell him all evolved from then ro the r97os, when it was appropriated by black STAGOLEE SHOT BILLY INTRODUCTION revolutionaries like Bobby Seale,who used it as a symbol of rhe en- this tune? And how is it that the same song can mean so many dif- during black male struggle against white oppression and racism. ferent things in so many different forms of music? We see its vestiges roday as gangsrer rap. While I was learning the Stagolee toast from my Uncle Lindsey, In short, sragolee is authendc African-American folklore. whar Hogman Maxey, a black prisoner, was singing the following version accouncs for its profound influence upon the worldview ofAfrican- to collector Harry Oster at che Angola State Penitenciary in Louisi- American men? What is Scagolee?Is ir simply a ballad? A roast?An ana. By then rhe Scagoleetradition was already six decades old. Yet epic?A subrype form oforal lirerarure? Is stagolee a polirical hero? Maxey's version remains close to che original in subscance. A cultural hero? Stagolee has taken musical shape as ballad, as blues, as jazz, as I was standin' on the corner epic, as folk song, and as rap. There are at least twenty jazz record_ When I heard my bulldog bark; ings, by musicians ranging from Cab Calloway,Jimmy Dorsey, and. He was barkin'at the two men Peggy Lee to Duke Ellingtoh. More chan a hundred bluesmen, from Who gamblin'in the dark. Champion Jack Dupree and Sonny Terry co Mississippi John Hurq It was Stagoleeand Billy, have recorded ir. During rhe r93os and r94os John Lomax and his Two men who gamble' late, son Alan collected it from prisoners across the Sourh, in the form Stagoleethrow seven, of a sricdy folk prorest music; at least a dozen recordings survive Billy swore that he throwed eight. in the Llbrary of Congress. And ir has chrived as a soul rune ren_ Sragoleetold Billy, dered by James Brown, Neil Diamond, Fats Domino, and Wilson "l can'Elet you go with that; Pickett. Performers of Stagolee have ranged from levee workers ro You havewon my money white female "coon-shouters,,, from whorehouse pianists to black And my brand new Stutson [Stetson] hat." female blues shouters, from hundreds of "unid.enrified Negro con- Stagoleewent home, victs" to famous contemporary musicians such as Huey Lewis and And got his forcy-four, the News, Bob Dylan, and the Grateful Dead., and from rgzos Ha_ Says,"I'm goin' to the bar room, waiian guitarists to rgTos English groups like rhe Clash. To pay the debt I owe." The earliesr recordings, in 1923,were made by rwo white d.ance Stagoleewent to the bar room, bands, Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians and Frank Wesrphal and His Stood four feet from the door Orchestra. The nexr recording was made int9z6 by Ma Rainey, one Didn't nobody know when he of the fi.rsr blacks to popularize vocal music. Australian rocker Nick Pulled his forry-four. cave last recorded ir in 1996. xvhac accounrs for the rongevity of Stagoleefound Billy, INTRODUCTION before "Oh pleasedon't take my life! "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," for example, which dates ro I got three lirtle children, 1690,is still sung in North Carolina.T Lord And a very sick iirtie wife." As an oraf narrative, Stagolee has what folklorist Albert Sragoleeshor Billy, called "multiformiqy," which allows "the existence of alrernadve My Lindsey Oh he shot rhat boy so fas' forms of a particular component of a theme."8 Uncle it to That the bullet camechrough him, chanced the sagaof "bad man" Stagolee;Hogman Maxey sang whether ic takes the form of a "bad And broke my window glass. guitar accompaniment. But (combining Somefolks don't believe, man" ballad, a talking blues singing and talking), a same. Oh Lord thac Billy dead folkcale, a drama, or a musical, the srory is essentially che oral narrative and rhe rich You don't believehe gone, This book is abour Stagolee as a black relationship it reveals berween oral literature and social life.e Jus'look what a hole in his head.s As an oral narrative, Stagolee is keyed not only to che evencs re- counted in the narrative but also to liminal, unofficial black social In the version I heard forry years ago, Billy Lyons also asked for organizations such as the black four hundred clubs, black-and-tan mercy.