Copyright © 2002-2009
by James P. Hauser except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Many of the sources consulted in the creation of the Stagger Lee Files are listed below. You should be able to find at least some of them at your local public library. If your library does not have certain sources which you are interested in, it will probably be able to get them for you by borrowing them from other libraries through the Interlibrary Loan (or ILL) system.
Sources:
Stetson Kennedy: The Stagger Lee Files came about largely as a result of corresponding with Stetson Kennedy and reading his writings about the Jim Crow south.. As I had heard that he was of some relation to John B. Stetson, the creator of the Stetson hat, I wrote to Mr. Kennedy regarding the hat. In particular, I wrote him regarding whether he thought the Stetson could possibly have been viewed by African-Americans as a symbol of white oppression. His response pointed me in several interesting directions including the case of Willis McCall and the Groveland Four. Mr. Kennedy has been a great worker for the civil rights cause and even infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. Two of his books, The Jim Crow Guide and Southern Exposure, have been especially enlightening to me in gaining an understanding of the terrible conditions endured by the men who created the blues. Mr. Kennedy is also the author of Palmetto Country, the founding member and past president of the Florida Folklore Society, and a recipient of the Florida Folk Heritage Award.
The following two websites were invaluable sources for me in creating The Stagger Lee Files.
1. The Early Blues Website: This website focuses on early blues music and contains an essay by Max Haymes entitled "Got the Blues For Mean Old Stack O' Lee" on the Stagger Lee legend. This essay contains the lyrics to all the songs referred to in my own essay (except for the lyrics to Ma Rainey's "Stack O' Lee Blues" which can be found in the book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Yvonne Davis).
2. Reason to Rock: I used this website's discussion of the main themes of rock, blues and jazz as the basis for my argument that Lloyd Price's recording of "Stagger Lee" may be the ultimate rock and roll record. The website's discussion of these themes are in a piece titled The Theme of Liberation.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Dr. Horace Clarence. How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Washington, D.C.: Elliott & Clark, 1995.
Brown, Cecil Morris Stagolee: From Shack Bully to Culture Hero. (This is Brown's Dissertation for his doctorate in African-American Literature, Folklore, and the Theory of Narrative at the University of California at Berkeley in the year 1993.)
Brown, Cecil (Morris). "The Real Stagger Lee." Mojo, no. 126 (January 1996) pages 77-78.
Dahl, Bill. "Lloyd Price: Mr. Personality" in Living Blues, no.147 (September/October 1999) pages 11-21.
Davis, Allison and Burleigh B. Gardner and Mary R. Gardner. Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941.
Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Person Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. New York: Random House, 2002.
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. (New Revised American Edition)
Green, Ben. Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr. New York: Free Press, 1999.
Haskins, James. Black Music in America: A History Through Its People. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1987.
Ice-T (as told to Heidi Siegmund). The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck? New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Jones, Maxine D. and Kevin M. McCarthy. African Americans in Florida. Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 1993.
Kelley, Robin D. G. "Straight From Underground (How Rap Music Portrays the Police)" in The Nation, June 8, 1992, vol. 254, no. 22, page 793 (4 pages).
Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1990.
Kennedy, Stetson. Southern Exposure. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1991.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Novel. New York: Viking Press, 1962
Leeming, David. James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1994.
Levine, Lawrence W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought From Slavery to Freedom. New York, Oxford University Press, 1977.
Lomax, Alan. The Land Where the Blues Began. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.
Lomax, John and Alan Lomax. American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: Macmillan, 1934.
Marcus, Greil. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.
Ogunleye, Tolagbe. "African American Folklore: Its Role in Reconstructing African American History" in the Journal of Black Studies, March 1997, vol. 27, No. 4, page 435 (21 pages).
Oshinsky, David M. Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the
Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. New York: Free Press, 1996.
Pearce, Donn. Cool Hand Luke. New York: Scribner, 1965.
Pratt, Theodore. "Land of the Jook." in the Saturday Evening Post, April 26, 1941, pages 20-21+
Redd, Lawrence N. Rock Is Rhythm and Blues. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1974.
Roberts, John W. From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero In Slavery and Freedom. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Roberts, John W. "Folklore" in The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1996.
Sample, Albert Race. Racehoss: Big Emma's Boy. Austin: Eakin Press, 1984.
Seale, Bobby. A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale / foreword by James Baldwin. New York: Times Books, 1978.
Thomas, Mike. "History Requires Sharing the Whole Truth." in the Orlando Sentinel (newspaper), March 18, 2001.
Liner Notes:
The sources below are the liner notes from two CDs, one containing the music of Mississippi John Hurt and the other Mahalia Jackson.
Boyer, Dr. Horace Clarence. Untitled liner notes. These liner notes are contained in the Mahalia Jackson 2 CD boxed set Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns. c1991, Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
Cohn, Lawrence. Mississippi John Hurt: The Dramatic Rediscovery of a Near-Legendary Blues Singer-Guitarist. These liner notes are contained in the Mississippi John Hurt CD Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 OKeh Recordings. (Roots N' Blues Series) c1996, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. The liner notes were originally published as an article in the July 16, 1965 issue of down beat magazine.