UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA SCHOOL OF MUSIC MUSICOLOGY AREA MUSICOLOGY COLLOQUIUM “Stagger Lee’s Come out on Top”: The Rock Migrations of Stack Lee Katherine Reed Friday, January 16 at 1:55 pm MUB 146 Since his 1895 murder of Billy Lyons in a St. Louis bar, "Stack" or "Stagger" Lee Shelton has been immortalized in countless spoken, sung, and printed versions of the Stagger Lee ballad, becoming an important part of American oral history and mythology. In The Clash's 1979 album London Calling, Stack found new life once again, revived in "Wrong 'Em Boyo," while 25 years later, the Black Keys recounted how "Stack Shot Billy." Though Cecil Brown and Greil Marcus have both addressed the role of this folkloric figure in specifically African-American culture and music, little critical attention has been paid to the myriad other afterlives of Stagger Lee. How does this oral tradition fit into the global musical perspectives of London Calling, or Rubber Factory's blues-tinged rock? In this paper, I examine "Wrong 'Em Boyo" and "Stack Shot Billy" for their relationships, lyrically and musically, to the well-documented Stagger Lee tradition through specific musical precursors. I analyze these recordings as part of a century-long aural travelogue, showing the ballad's migration through a variety of musical genres like punk, rock, reggae, and blues. Through a close lyrical, musical, and stylistic analysis, I question why outlaw and "bad man" Stagger Lee is still a relevant figure for The Black Keys in contemporary Rust Belt Ohio and The Clash in Thatcher's England. Addressing these covers as a response to socially and economically troubled times, this paper examines the politics of Stack Lee's mythos across racial, cultural, and temporal divides. .