Phi Beta Kappa Billy Graham. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. An 1896 Globe-Democrat article reveals an attitude among white St. Louisans toward the killing of Blacks that could fairly be called genocidal: Though the Morgue and the City Hospital are regularly supplied with subjects from [Curtiss saloon] it is generally conceded that he is acting as a public benefactor in allowing undesirable members of colored society to be dispatched in his place of business. The reason Shelton finally went to prison, in all likelihood, wasnt that hed killed a man but that hed killed the wrong man. [12], The song was first recorded by Waring's Pennsylvanians in 1923 and became a hit. Lee was arrested, tried, andafter two trialssentenced to twenty-five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. To be honest, though, I'd never read too much . Amazingly enough, the song may be the most re-recorded in history, with well over four hundred separate recordings to its name. Police officer, how can it be There can be no doubt that Susie Mae Myles and Arthur Buddy Johnson were the great-grandchildren of Billy Lyons. She hasnt remained central to the story the way Billys family did, but Mrs. Stagolee haunts early versions of the song. Billy Lyons is an actor, known for Treaty Live (2022). you can rest everybody but cruel Stack OLee? In Davids taped interviews, Myles and Johnson seem confident that their great-grandfather died in Curtiss saloon that Christmas night. Lyons died of his injuries, and Shelton was charged, tried, and convicted of the murder in 1897. When I contacted Davids widow, Judith, in the summer of 2019, she asked if Id like to have it. Taking a knife from his pocket, he proclaimed, Im going to make you kill me!. "Billy Lyons" redirects here. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon's hat from his head. For such men as Stack Lee Shelton, however, business was booming. It may have seemed like providence when a Stagolee-struck researcher, also 47, showed up on her doorstep, hoping literally to carry out her late husbands work. Billy Lyons succumbed the next morning, one of five murder victims in St. Louis that Christmas Day. What about Stags bad man reputation and Billys wife and children, though? In 1987, retirement called and the two leased the restaurant for 25 years to a new owner, while retaining ownership of the . Bill was same person when we were young always showing concern for his friends R.I.P. Actor. The feud between Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons is as legendary as the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys; a truly American folk tale, retold countless times, about Stagger shooting Billy Lyons over, varyingly, a Stetson hat, a woman, a gambling debt, politics, or simply because Stagger was that mean of a man. Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Starting in the 1960s, for example, the Stetson hat, more closely associated with white cowboys than Black hustlers, was replaced in many versions of the song by a Cadillac. Actor, director, writer. [2][1]:4243 He was not a common pimp as described by Cecil Brown, "Lee Shelton belonged to a group of pimps known in St. Louis as the 'Macks.' Back Submit. The personal traumas that allegedly drove her to do it included the recent slaying of her step-father, William Lyons, by Lee Sheldon [sic]. The shoddiness of 19th-century journalism makes me skeptical of anything reported only once. On Christmas night 1895, at Bill Curtis' saloon at the corner of 11th and Morgan . 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. But the sheer ubiquity of Stack Lees name in the crime pages is impossible to explain away. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a 2016 war drama film directed by Ang Lee and written by Jean-Christophe Castelli, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Ben Fountain.The film stars Joe Alwyn, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, and Chris Tucker. How was he able to terrorize the city for close to a decade without acquiring a rap sheet? [3] In addition to those activities, he was the captain of a black Four Hundred Club, a social club with a dubious reputation. [1]:35 The 1995 version by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds paints Stagger Lee as a sociopathic, bisexual, sexual predator who forces a foe to perform fellatio on him before shooting the man to death. According to them, Lyons had married a southern woman named Lena Northcross. Lyons was also a member of St. Louis' underworld, and may have been a political and business rival to Shelton. In the St. Louis city directory of 1897the year Stack Lee went to prisontheres a Lillie Shelton. 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. Listening to their exchange for the first time was a singular privilegehearing, muddily but unmistakably, the precise moment when Stagolee stepped from folklore back into fact. From there, dozens andeventuallyhundreds of recorded renditions of Stacks story were spawned. But long before rehabilitating Thomas Cromwells reputation, Mantel was unparalleled in her crystalline dissections of power, whether between girls at the University of London or Dantonists in the French Revolution. See all See top. The version by Mississippi John Hurt, recorded in 1928, is regarded by many as definitive. Signal gongs and electric wires to warn the operators of danger had been strung about the place. Annie I. Bang/Invision, via Associated Press. He has also been a panellist on several episodes of the topical discussion series The Wright Stuff. 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 . For all of us who know and love him, it's our turn to . In the summer of 2010, Stuke was featured on Celebrity MasterChef, where it was discovered that he was not a very good chef, despite his claim that he was. Walter O'Keefe: August 18, 1900 June 26, 1983 American Marriage and birth dates make them difficult but not impossible to reconcile, and if either one is true, then so are all those song lyrics. www.shodavision.com. Permission required for reprinting, reproducing, or other uses. A graduate of Ithaca College (BFA Acting), Billy has performed both regionally and Off-Broadway at the Irish Rep. He is very active and popular in several social networking sites. Experience actor . 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. In 1909, then-Missouri governor Joseph Wingate Folk gave Shelton a full pardon on Thanksgiving day. Whats dat he killed him wid? That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O Lee, And all they gathered, hands way up high, Billy Lyons was the brother-in-law of Henry Bridgewater, an influential saloon owner and by some accounts the wealthiest Black man in St. Louis. Years active. As the oral legend spread of Stack Lee as a black man who would not back down, Billy Lyons turned into ''a small . The latter indignantly demanded its return. 1939 - John Amos, American actor 1943 - Cokie Roberts, American journalist 1944 - Mick Jones, English guitarist, and songwriter 1948 - Grard Depardieu, French-Russian actor . Angela Discon. The prolific Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent's cause of death was revealed after he passed away on Saturday (February 25), at the age of 92. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stagger_Lee&oldid=1139901017, The song is sung by an African American prisoner in Jack Black's autobiography, The song "Wrong 'Em Boyo" by the Jamaican, In John Hornor Jacobs' 2019 horror novella. Mindy Lyons is organizing this fundraiser. A Caring Friend. The historical Lee Shelton was an African American man born in 1865 in Texas. 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. Following Lees shooting of Billy Lyons, a St. Louis newspaper printed a letter to the editor from members of the Four Hundred Club, stating that Mr. Ma Rainey recorded the song the following year, with Louis Armstrong on cornet, and a notable version was recorded by Frank Hutchison in 1927. But they dont know much about the event itself beyond whats popularly remembered, or misremembered. Our family got back to our house around mid-afternoon and, as was her nature, Robin cleaned the Christmas leavings from the countertops and washed plates and glasses . Burnside, who also sang popular versions of Stagger Lees song. Listen to a clip from John Russell Davids 1973 interview with Ed McKinney, and be sure to read Eric McHenrys annotation to the murder ballads oldest known lyrics. He was paroled in 1909, but returned to prison in 1911 for assault and robbery. Currently, Billy Lyons is 157 years, 10 months and 20 days old. Because no one knows where that song really originated! He tells McKinney that even Nathan Young, the dean of St. Louis folk historians, hadnt heard of the real Stagolee: I said, Was he a real person? And he said, Oh no, he was a folklore character.. In its World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, It Takes a Lunatic, director Billy Lyons (actor, director, teacher, producer and assistant to Wynn Handman) displays the man behind the mask and reveals there is no mask or gloss to Wynn Handman. Lincoln in the Bardo features a myriad of charactersdead and alive, historical and imaginary who offer perspective and input on the story as it unfolds. Esio Magalhes Ator, palhao, diretor e professor no Barraco Teatro Campinas, SP. [10] In his version, as in all such pieces, there are many (sometimes anachronistic) variants on the lyrics. [10], The song was first recorded by Waring's Pennsylvanians in 1923, and became a hit. Following a breadcrumb trail of birth announcements and census records, I tracked down the children of their sister, the late Rosealee Johnson Pearson. Lyons refused, and Sheldon drew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. The State of Missouri charged Lee Shelton, alias Stack Lee, with the murder of Williams Lyons (from the papers of John Russell David). [16] His version was ranked number 456 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and also reached number 7 on the UK singles chart. He died in incarceration in 1912. In his 2003 book Stagolee Shot Billy, based on his earlier doctoral dissertation on the subject, scholar Cecil Brown recounts the story of how the real "Stag" Lee became an iconic figure in . That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O Lee, Billy de Lyon told Stack O Lee, Please dont take my life, Nuno Marques Planeamento e Atividades Econmicas at Municpio de Setbal . By this time, folk versions of the Stagger Lee song were cropping up all across the South. [15][16], Within thirty years of Shelton's death, Benjamin Botkin records stories among the superstitious of his having been born with a caul over his face (signifying one with the power to see spirits and destined for trouble), or of having sold his soul to the Devil (in exchange for the hat, said to be magic, over which he killed Billy Lyons). Available for both RF and RM licensing. [10], Last edited on 17 February 2023, at 12:46, List of number-one R&B singles of 1959 (U.S.), "Stacker Lee: A partial investigation into the historicity of a Negro murder ballad", "A Brief History of Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons", "Herb Wiedoeft's Cinderella Roof Orchestra", "19451946 Sidney Bechet | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic", "Billboard Hot 100 60th Anniversary Interactive Chart", "Largehearted Boy: Book Notes Derek McCulloch ("Stagger Lee")". Billy has 1 job listed on their profile. 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