True Crime Blues, Pt.1-Stagolee
02/03/25 • 43 min
Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues. Program #1 focuses on a single crime: the murder of William Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, MO, on Christmas 1895. How is it that a 130 year-old crime has become so embedded in our national zeitgeist? Over 502 different performers have recorded songs about “Stagolee”. Obviously, we won’t play all of them but we’ll tell the real story of what happened as opposed to some of the fanciful versions that have appeared in song over the years. Available on your favorite podcast platform and always free.
Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues. Program #1 focuses on a single crime: the murder of William Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, MO, on Christmas 1895. How is it that a 130 year-old crime has become so embedded in our national zeitgeist? Over 502 different performers have recorded songs about “Stagolee”. Obviously, we won’t play all of them but we’ll tell the real story of what happened as opposed to some of the fanciful versions that have appeared in song over the years. Available on your favorite podcast platform and always free.
Previous Episode
Robert Lockwood, Jr. 1st Interview
This program features what I, and the original interviewer Ron Weinstock, believe is the first ever extended interview with Robert Lockwood, Jr. This took place at the studios of radio station WRUW-FM on the campus of Case-Western Reserve University in early 1971. Present in the studio were Weinstock, Lockwood, Dave Griggs, and myself. Robert had recently emerged from a ten year semi-retirement and was playing as a featured guest in the Dave Griggs band, in clubs around the Greater Cleveland area. He had not yet put together his own band. Robert talks about himself (Robert never had problems with self-esteem), and many of the people he worked with over the years including Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Lester Melrose, and Doctor Clayton. This program may be a bit esoteric, but I believe it's an historically significant document that deserves and needs to be heard. A special thanks goes out to the late Nick Amster, who paid to have someone go through a large box of reel-to-reel tapes to find the one that had this interview on it.
Next Episode
True Crime Blues Pt.2
Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues.Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues. In Pt.1 we listened to different versions of a single case: the murder of Wm. Lyons by "Stack" Lee Shelton. In Pt.2 we check out several different crimes, from the 1890's through the 1950's. All true and all sung about by Blues Singers including John Hurt, Bukka White, Chuck Willis, & Eric Bibb. Always free and available on your favorite podcast platform.
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