Writer: Derek McCulloch
Artist: Shepherd Hendrix
Publisher: Image Comics
In 1895, St. Louis, Lee Shelton shot and killed Billy Lyons in a fight over Shleton’s Stetson hat. The shooting and Shleton’s two trials inspired numerous folk songs that retell and rewrite the story. These songs are often called “Stack O’Lee”, “Stackalee”, “Stagolee”, “Stagger Lee” and other variations. Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee” was the most successful, but other versions were sung by The Clash, The Grateful Dead, Nick Cave, Woody Guthrie, and . . . Neil Diamond?
‘Stagger Lee’ looks at the politics and racism that shaped the course of the trial and the people involved. Lee Shelton was part of a political group called The Colored 400, who appealed to “Col”. Butler, leader of the local combine, for Shelton’s release. Butler hires Nat Dryden for Lee’s defense. Dryden was the first black man to have convicted a white man for the murder of a black man in Missouri. Lyons’ stepmother and brother also exert their considerable influence to ensure a conviction. And since this is the story of a song, a piano player and a woman are also involved.
I loved this book! Not only is this a compelling political drama, but it’s also a frank exploration of race in the 1890’s. I got the impression that blacks and whites literally lived in two different worlds within the same society. And there were strict rules about relationships between those two worlds. Politics seems to be the only thing they have in common. Black or white, the rules of influence apply equally to everyone. Incidentally, I read a black and white preview of the book. And there were times when black characters looked no different from the white characters. That is, without their skin colored black or brown, I wouldn’t have known they were African-American.
By no means is this a knock against Hendrix. Each of his people is unique. They are distinctly their own. As the cast grows, this becomes the best way to follow who’s who. At times it’s the only way. Hendrix successfully recreates the St. Louis of the 1895. Clothing, buildings, and little details that come from day-to-day living are all authentic. Hendrix brings life to what otherwise would have been a stuffy history lesson. His people evoke a sense of movement of life and feeling found only in the best art.
Throughout the story are asides about how the song changed and grew over the years. These are often humorous, with multiple Lee’s and Billy’s fighting it out. Differences are noted between versions by black artists and those by white artists. The deviation from reality grows with the passage of time. These history lessons reminded me of the appendix to Alan Moore’s ‘From Hell’. Both have a similar writing style and reflect long hours of research.
McCulloch’s endnotes explain the liberties he took with history for the sake of the story. The two largest ones involve the election of Joseph Folk and the race of Nat Dryden. Folk was a circuit court judge elected with the help of Butler. Ironically, Folk’s investigation into Butler’s dealing destroyed his combine. These events occur five years earlier in the book than they did in real life. After McCulloch started writing the book, he found a picture of Nat Dryden that showed him to be white. And yet, records from that time refer to Dryden as a black lawyer who served in the Colored Infantry during the Civil War. Either there were two “Nat Dryden’s”, or Dryden was very light skinned. Given the many changes to the song itself, a story with deliberate and accidental mistakes is appropriate.
There are no transcripts from Shleton’s trial, so everything in those scenes is pure invention. But there’s nothing that seems unusual or out of the ordinary for that or any other time period. And given the few facts, (the murder, the conviction, and the people involved), everything makes sense. The side stories not directly related to the trial ultimately affected its outcome. Brief glimpses into Lee Shelton’s past showed us what kind of man he was. And he was a man capable of killing a man in a drunken fight. The hat, if it was ever real, was probably just the last straw.
So Lee Shelton passed into history as “Stagger Lee”, a bad, bad man. The first black outlaw, an anti-hero archetype that was the forefather to the slick pimp and gangsta rapper. At one point, McCulloch asks why the African-American versions often say “they were glad to see him die”, while white versions say, “we was glad to see him die”? Why does black culture often lionize the outlaw and the criminal?
I think the answer says more about yourself than either race.
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