Billy said to Stagolee, “Please don’t take my life
I’ve got three little babies and a darling loving wife”
He was a bad man, that cruel Stagolee
– Stagolee, traditional
The blues ballad Stagolee (or Stagger Lee, Stackolee, etc.) is a classic of the African-American folk music tradition. In it, cruel Stagolee murders pathetic Billy over something petty (usually a hat, a gambling debt, or an insult) while Billy unsuccessfully begs for his life. It’s based on a real murder from 1895 St. Louis. The whole business is very gameable.
As a song, Stagolee was a product of the same emotional ferment that later gave us gangster rap and trap music. It’s a song about a Black gangster: his pride, his grievances, and the violence to which he felt he was driven. Many Black men saw themselves in both cruel Stagolee and sad, dead Billy. They made the song both a celebration and a lament. Singers carried Stagolee across the whole of the United States.
Speaking of RPGs and folk music, the Kickstarter for my next full RPG, Ballad Hunters, is still on schedule for March 17th! You can read more about it here and sign up to be notified when it goes live here! I’m also doing a monthly design diary leading up to the Kickstarter. The third entry, about the Regency setting, is here, while the first two entries are here and here.
This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Alamo4. Thanks, dude—you rock!
Stagolee and Billy were real people. The murder happened in 1895 in St. Louis’s Bill Curtis Saloon. This was in the city’s high-class vice district: beautiful buildings, humming vaudeville theaters, passers-by in breathtaking clothing, and an astonishing level of violence. The district saw five other murders on the night Stagolee shot Billy.
Funnily enough, I have a small personal connection to the location of the murder. The Bill Curtis Saloon was at what is today the corner of 13th and Delmar. When I lived in St. Louis, I’d park at that corner when I picked up my pull list at a now-closed comic book shop.
William “Billy” Lyons had gone to the saloon for a drink. The place was gorgeous, but Lyons knew it was dangerous. He borrowed a knife from a friend before he went inside. Lyons was the brother-in-law of one of the richest Black men in St. Louis. Lyons’s family were Republicans; that same brother-in-law ran the social club frequented by Black Republicans. There is some suggestion that Lyons might have been a bully in real life (rather than a pathetic innocent), but I don’t find the evidence entirely compelling.
Lee “Stack Lee” Shelton entered later. He too had some money. He and Lyons were lifelong friends. Unlike Lyons, Shelton was a Democrat. He ran the Four Hundred Club: the social club for Black Democrats. It might seem odd for Shelton to support the party of unreconstructed Confederates, but the Missouri Republican Party (ostensibly the party of Lincoln) had abandoned civil rights as a legislative priority. Meanwhile, Democrats courted Black voters with favorable promises, like hiring Black policemen. The next year, 90% of Black voters in St. Louis would vote Democrat.
Shelton was a “mack”: a particular style of well-dressed pimp. He wore shoes with a long, upward-pointing toe topped with tiny mirrors. He wore a red velvet vest over an embroidered yellow shirt with a stiff, high detachable collar. His fingers bore gold rings and held a gold-headed ebony cane. A black coat, worn open, tied the ensemble together. Atop his head perched a white Stetson hat that would soon cause trouble.
Lyons bought Shelton a drink. They talked and laughed until the conversation turned to politics. Shelton got mad and broke Lyons’s bowler hat. Lyons grabbed Shelton’s Stetson. Shelton demanded it back, Lyons refused, and Shelton pulled out a .44 revolver. He hit Lyons with it and threatened to kill him. Lyons drew his knife, snarling, “You cock-eyed sonofabitch, I’m gonna make you kill me.”
So Shelton shot him. While Lyons, dying, clung to the bar, Shelton walked up to him. “I told you to give me my hat!” He snatched up the Stetson, put it on his head, and walked out of the saloon. Lyons died in the hospital. Shelton died in prison 17 years later.
Stagolee songs started circulating in St. Louis almost immediately. The character of “Stack Lee,” “Stagger Lee,” or eventually “Stagolee” remained remarkably grounded, even as the details of the story changed. The song remained a narrative about a murder over some petty bullshit.
I’m partial to this version, recorded by Taj Mahal in 1969:
Could be on a rainy morning
Could be on a rainy night
Stagolee and Billy de Lyon
Had a great big fight
Talking bout that bad man
Cruel old Stagolee
“Stagolee,” said Billy
“Man, you know I can’t go with that
I done won all your money
And your great big Stetson hat”
Talking bout that bad man
Cruel old Stagolee
“Stagolee,” said Billy
“Man, don’t take my life
I’ve got two loving children
I got a very loving wife”
Talking bout that bad man
Cruel old Stagolee
Stagolee shot Billy
Shot that boy so bad
The bullet went through Billy
Broke the bartender’s looking-glass
Talking bout that bad man
Cruel old Stagolee
If you’re ever down in Louisiana
Go into the Lyons Club
Every foot you’ll be stepping in
Billy de Lyons’s blood
Talking bout that bad man
Cruel old Stagolee
I’ll get the easy way to use Stagolee at your table out of the way quick. The real-life confrontation between Stack and Billy is a fabulous bar scene that, if heroic PCs encounter it in a fictionalized context, almost forces them to get involved. Tie the political argument between the two men to two political factions in your fictional campaign world. That way, if the characters intervene to try to break up the argument before someone winds up dead (and someone else in jail), they’ve now embroiled themselves in your campaign setting’s politics. They’ve made enemies and allies, perhaps without realizing it, and that pays dividends for the GM going forward.
But I’m the Ballad Hunters guy, so obviously I’m gonna encourage you to have the song come to life at your table. Have the players stumble upon a murder scene just like the Stagolee murder—and tell the players their characters recognize the murder scene from the song. Tell them that Stagolee is a popular song in this fictional setting, but the similarities between what they’re seeing and what’s in the song are undeniable. Then you can start folding in verses from other versions of the song. Here are some that are particularly gameable:
Some folks don’t believe
O lord that Billy dead
You don’t believe he gone
Just look what a hole in the head
– Hogman Maxey, 1959
The news spread quickly round the town
And all the gang came to see
What cop would have the nerve
To pinch bad Stackerlee
That quick-shooting, two-gun-toting Stackerlee
– Anonymous, 1903
Says the captain to the police
“Just keep still as any mouse
And we will sure catch old Stackalee
At his woman’s house”
That bad man Stackalee
– S.J. Duffield, 1927
At last she went to Judge MacDonald
Said “Judge what his fine?
I got a hundred cold iron men saved up
In nickels, quarters, and dimes
I can’t live without my papa Stackerlee”
– Anonymous, 1903
Judge says, “Even if you sold your horse and buggy
And every stick of wood
We’re going to make an example out of this here pimp
And money’s going to do him no good
Cause he laid poor Billy’s body down”
Bad Staggerlee
– S.J. Duffield, 1927
“Jailer O jailer
I just can’t sleep
For the ghost of Billy Lyons
Round my bed does mourn and weep”
– Ella Scott Fischer, 1910
The hangman put the mask on
Tied the hands behind his back
Spring the trap on Stagolee
But his neck refused to crack
Hangman, he got frightened
He said, “Chief you see how it be
I can’t hang this man
You better let him go free”
Chief Maloney said to the hangman
“Before I’d let him go alive—“
He up with his police special
Shot him six times in the side
– collected by John and Alan Lomax and published 1934
Have strange events from the song plague the PCs and NPCs. The murderer becomes supernaturally dangerous: “quick-shooting, two-gun-toting” and with a neck that cannot be broken. He posts up in a house with a stranger who becomes unexplainably protective of him when she takes on the role of “his woman.” Men of iron rise up out of the coins she carries in her pocket to protect Stagolee and endanger anyone who gets involved. The authorities refuse to leave well enough alone, as they’re “going to make an example” of him, even if it gets many of them killed. Then a ghost of the murder victim starts causing trouble. Despite his ferocity, the murderer himself is in grave danger of being killed by the authorities: shot “six times in the side.” Can the players intervene and get everyone to the end of this song safe?
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Sing and fight magical folk ballads in 1813 England and Scotland! Ballad Hunters is the sequel to Shanty Hunters, winner of a 2022 Ennie Award (Judge’s Choice) and nominee at the Indie Groundbreaker Awards for Most Innovative and Game of the Year. And it’s coming to Kickstarter in March!
The game has:
– Investigative adventures centered around the lyrics of traditional British ballads
– Simple, story-driven rules inspired by the GUMSHOE engine
– A historical setting that is grim but hopeful
– Magic where characters make ballad verses come to life
You can download the free early-access version of the game from DriveThruRPG or Google Drive.
The final game will be published by Pelgrane Press, the people behind 13th Age and GUMSHOE games like Trail of Cthulhu, Swords of the Serpentine, and The Yellow King. You can read more about it on their website and sign up to be notified when it’s available for purchase by putting yourself on my mailing list.
Source:
Stagolee Shot Billy by Cecil Brown (2003)