Before World War II, the song was commonly known as "Stack O'Lee". 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 . Yeah, but I wonder if there was ever a person whose name was , Lee Shelton? As a born-and-bred Oklahoman, the scene immediately caught my attention. 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. Whats been missing is any corroborating evidence that isnt a song lyric. 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. Gosh almighty. According to the lines in the song, it was over a game of chance: In fact, if the local newspapers are to be credited, the altercation was political in nature. Billy Crudup photographed by Bronwen Sharp Vineyard Theatre Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern and Managing Director Suzanne Appel are pleased to release photos from the 40th Anniversary Gala hosted at The Edison Ballroom (240 West 47th Street). You can check Billy out in the film John Nieto: A The police and Coast Guard have been involved in search and rescue since Sunday morning but . [3], Further details are preserved in trial accounts. Billy "Spacey" Lyons is an Actor, Musician, Tattoo Artist and Motor. In January 1896, according to a Post-Dispatch item that escaped the notice of earlier researchers, a young woman named Stella Casey took her own life by swallowing a box of rat poison. Here are prison records with Stack Lees signature and fingerprints. In Davids taped interviews, Myles and Johnson seem confident that their great-grandfather died in Curtiss saloon that Christmas night. Other recorded variants include "Stackerlee", "Stack O'Lee", "Stackolee", "Stackalee", "Stagerlee", and "Stagalee". Episode #17 of the Motorcycle Knuckle Busters podcast. But whether the word is used to celebrate or censure Stagolee, the implication of bad is always that hes dangerous and widely feared. Unable to get parole, he died in the hospital of the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City on March 11, 1912, from tuberculosis. Stagolee and John Henry: Two Black Freedom Songs? He is very active and popular in several social networking sites. It was not unheard of, in other words, for the days news to pass from fact into folklore almost instantaneously, trapping many authentic details in the amber. In the past several decades, artists of all genres and background have taken to the song. Lyons refused, and Sheldon drew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. Through every generation and nearly every musical style, Stagger Lee has made an appearance. Billy died of his wound shortly thereafter, and Lee was sentenced to a twenty-five-year prison term. But more importantly, he had the kindest soul of anyone I've ever known. 22 February 1966 (age 57) Deal, Kent, England. See all See top. He, too, believe it or not, had tuberculosis. He was also booked at various times for stealing a gold watch, carrying brass knuckles, and getting caught in an opium joint. He told me when we were young that some day he would be a Sac PD police officer just like his Dad. Luxury The Future of Auctions Might Rely on . By the time his first trial ended in a hung jury, Shelton was already the subject of a popular prison ballad. The story was first covered in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on December 28th, 1895. Press Esc to cancel. Eric McHenryis a poet and critic whose work has appeared in The Yale Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and The Threepenny Review. 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. Permission required for reprinting, reproducing, or other uses. Additional fantastic legends credit him with the ability to transform himself into animals, of having caused the San Francisco earthquake, and of having fought a duel with Jesse James.[17]. Nonetheless, Stagger Lee spread with extraordinary speed, beginning shortly after the actual killing. Stack Lee was also well connected, which may further explain his having gotten away with so much for so long. Paulo Anes Poet Lisboa. At one point, David asks Myles when she first heard the family story about Stack Lee and Billy, and she says, Well, a song came out. When he invites Johnson to share the familys version of the legend, Johnson singsin a beautiful, mournful voicethe lyrics to Lloyd Prices number-one hit. Myles and Johnson both died in the 80s, and neither had surviving children. From there, dozens andeventuallyhundreds of recorded renditions of Stacks story were spawned. Sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa Soon, the musical, mythical iteration of Stack Lee supplanted the man himself, as black America cultivated and nurtured a heroic outlaw to admire. He always addresses Stagolee, and its always some version of the same two-sentence appeal: Please dont take my life. In the St. Louis city directory of 1897the year Stack Lee went to prisontheres a Lillie Shelton. His television career also includes Between the Lines, Trust, Reggie Perrin, At Home with the Braithwaites, Monday Monday, Office Gossip, Bedtime, A Touch of Frost, The Catherine Tate Show and playing an alcoholic footballer/policeman in a 1997 episode of Pie in the Sky. In a number of variations, even death itself is not the end for Stagger Lee. A question that almost everyone who writes about Stagolee eventually takes up is, Why are we still talking about this particular murder? That night, a man died and a legend was born. Bill was an old school cop but also had a gentle kindness along with a spirit of intent to help people. Did he really run with Jesse James, have a magical Stetson, or take hell away from the devil when he died, as has been suggested? In 18891890 alone, he was arrested for assault with intent to kill on three separate occasions. A Johnson `64 classmate who will be missed by all of us. The bad man emerged in their stories and songs as an alternative to more wholesome folk heroes like John Henry. As part of The American Place Theatre's Literature to Life program, Billy was directed by Wynn in The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, which he performed extensively in schools and communities throughout the USA, working closely with Vietnam Veterans. Click To Watch Free 'NAACP Image Awards 2023' Live Stream. 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. In a typescript draft of Davids book, I found the following: Surviving documents record that two of the Lyons childrenFlorence and Mariewere already in St. Louis Colored Orphans Home by May of 1894 where they were baptized by Father Cassius Mason of All Saints Episcopal Church. Phi Beta Kappa Despite the tendency of folktales to grow taller, the canonical Stagolee story has remained impressively stable over the years: Stagolee is a bad man who objects to Billy Lyonss stealing his Stetson. BY Billy Lyons. It Takes a Lunatic is his first film. Several older versions give Billy's last name as "De Lyons" or "Deslile". Lee hit him on the head with his pistol, which was actually a .44-caliber Smith & Wesson. EP17: Billy "Spacey" Lyons - Actor, Musician, Tattoo Artist and Motorcycle Enthusiast. Report this profile Report Report. He was paroled in 1909, but returned to prison in 1911 for assault and robbery. Heres the original arrest warrant. When Stacka Lee has his trial thro. A Caring Friend. For all their stylistic and thematic variety, the songs are nearly unanimous that Billy Lyons had a wife and kids. [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. [citation needed], Stagger Lee has become an archetype with some Black people who admire the gangster type; a parallel to the glorification of the outlaw by a section of mainstream society. The version by Mississippi John Hurt, recorded in 1928, is regarded by many as definitive. His voice is arid, his speech halting but extravagantly precise. Billy Lyons actor at billy lyons Dublin e Regio. When I contacted Davids widow, Judith, in the summer of 2019, she asked if Id like to have it. That year, musicologist John Lomax received a partial transcription of the song,[9] and in 1911 two versions were published in the Journal of American Folklore by the sociologist and historian Howard W. I had to borrow cassette players from three different friends before I found one that would play the 90-minute Memorex, which is actually a dub of a reel-to-reel recording from 1973a 40-year-old copy of a 46-year-old conversation with an 88-year-old man. 1,431 likes. He is an actor and producer, known for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Tron (1982) and Black Moon Rising (1986). The origins of this tale begin with a Christmas Eve bar fight in Saint Louis in 1895. John and Alan Lomax claimed that the nickname came from a riverboat owned by the Lee family of Memphis called the Stack Lee, which was known for its on-board prostitution. Billy Lyons will celebrate 158rd birthday on a Thursday 16th of March 2023. After a century of vilification, its time to separate Lee Shelton the man from Stackolee the myth., A few Newspapers.com searches, however, reveal that Lee Shelton was indeed a serially violent man, even by the standards of the citys Bloody Third district. Billy is an actor, director, teacher, and producer living in midtown Manhattan, where hes trained with and been the close assistant to Wynn Handman for many years. As the oral legend spread of Stack Lee as a black man who would not back down, Billy Lyons turned into ''a small . The song exploded in popularity and became #1 on the Billboard Pop Charts. Log In or Sign Up Billy Lyons See Photos Billy Lyons See Photos Billy Lyons See Photos Billy Lyons See Photos Billy Lyons See Photos Billy Lyons See Photos William Lyons (Billiam) Stack O Lee killed Billy de Lyon about a five-dollar Stetson hat [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.' The State of Missouri charged Lee Shelton, alias Stack Lee, with the murder of Williams Lyons (from the papers of John Russell David). Nationality. 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. Mindy Lyons is organizing this fundraiser. The death certificates of both Marie and Florence, for example, list Lyons as their biological father. That year, musicologist John Lomax received a partial transcription of the song,[11] and in 1911, two versions were published in the Journal of American Folklore by the sociologist and historian Howard W. In November 1894, he beat a man with a revolver, fracturing his skull and inflicting five severe scalp wounds. Less than two months later, he fired a shot without effect at Thomas Gibson. He then hit Gibson over the head with the butt of the gun. Director Billy Lyons Producer Billy Lyons A version by Lloyd Price reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. He was paroled in 1909,[1] but was imprisoned again two years later for assault and robbery. On December 28th, 1895 whose name was, Lee Shelton taped interviews, and! 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