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A Great artist with a fantastic band does tremendous versions of this old classic.

Official Video:

Great (GREAT!) Live version (with slightly altered lyrics, hehe):

From www.staggerlee.com:

The song tells the story of a murder. On Christmas Eve, 1895, in a St. Louis saloon, “Stag” Lee Shelton, a black pimp, shot William “Billy” Lyons. Eyewitnesses say Billy snatched Stag’s Stetson hat. Boom, boom, boom, boom went Stag’s forty-four. You don’t mess with a man’s hat.

The events of that night were immediately cast into song. Like a game of Chinese Whispers it swept through the South, following railway lines and paddle steamers of the Mississippi. Told and retold. Sung and resung. Changing a little bit each time. Reality slipped away and the myth was created.

“Stagolee was, undoubtedly and without question, the baddest nigger that ever lived. Stagolee was so bad that the flies wouldn’t even fly around his head in the summertime, and snow wouldn’t fall on his house in the winter.”

– Julius Lester, “Black Folktales.”

Like any great myth, the true origins are shrouded. We must delve beyond recorded history.

The history of the song tells many stories. It is an anthem of the dispossessed. It expresses fear of the scary black man, the evolution of modern music, culture theft from black to white, hero worship of the outlaw, the origins of a legendary character and the writing of a Myth.

No other song has so transcended its humble beginnings and been re-invented in so many genres, in so many media and by so many artists.

Over 400 different artists have recorded this song since the first recording in 1923.

I think Samuel Jackson does a very good badass version in the movie Black Snake Moan, so here is a bonus video:

– Hallgeir