Stagger Lee Saturdays: Lloyd Price Month

In January of 1998, Lloyd Price was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the usual concert that evening, he was joined by John Fogerty, who sang along with him on "Stagger Lee."

At one point, Mr. Fogerty and Mr. Price can't agree on which verse they're singing... for an entire verse, and neither notices, or at least backs down. Me personally? I think Stag the badass wouldn't back down either, even if he were singing the wrong verse, publicly and loudly.

This brings Lloyd Price month to an end here on Stagger Lee Saturdays. I hope all of you have enjoyed the four different recordings from him. Next week, we'll hear the only cover of Lloyd's "sanitized," non-violent version I know of. (As another minor housekeeping note, I've uploaded today's song to two different hosts, for your ease and convenience. I'll probably do this from now on, though I'm unlikely to go back to past posts and edit them all.)

Lloyd Price and John Fogerty - Stagger Lee (live 1-12-98)
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Stagger Lee Saturdays: Lloyd Price Month

Here's an insane story. In 1958, Lloyd Price was on tour to promote his huge hit "Stagger Lee." While in Louisville, Kentucky, he met a young kid outside the Top Hat Lounge, too young to go in but full of piss and vinegar. The kid was a boxer, he said, and he was gonna be the heavyweight champion of the world. Sure you will, said Lloyd, and made friends with the kid. That kid's name was Cassius Clay. (And now you know, as the man says, the rest of the story.)

Harold Logan, who co-wrote "Personality" and Lloyd's take on Stag, was a Cleveland boy, and introduced Lloyd to a guy he knew from Cleveland, named Donald King, a numbers runner and smalltime boxing promoter. And so Lloyd Price, hisownself, introduced Don King to Muhammad Ali.

(Sometimes I get the feeling that, if I study Stag long enough, I'll learn a little bit about everything ever in the history of the universe.) And as interesting as that story is, the only reason I told you is this: in 1998, HBO was making a movie about Don King, which was going to star Ving Rhames (who'd go on to win the Golden Globe and give it to Jack Lemmon). Price and Logan were also portrayed in the film, by Vondie Curtis-Hall and Lou Rawls, respectively. And Lloyd was approached about rerecording his two biggest hits for the soundtrack.

He went to a young friend of his, Freddie Foxxx, and asked him to rap over "Stagger Lee" and "Personality." So here is Lloyd's 1998 take on Stag. Lloyd sings the story, as Freddie interpolates his version of the lyrics in his raps, linking the original 1958 "badass" story to the gangsta style of forty years later.

(This glorious page says that Price had previously rerecorded Stag in 1989, but I've never heard that one.) One final note -- my webhost is being a real bitch today (this post has been written for four hours while I tried to upload one song), so I'm trying out a new one. Let me know what you think.

Lloyd Price and Freddie Foxxx - Stagger Lee (uncensored remix)
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Stagger Lee Saturdays: Lloyd Price Month

So the story goes like this: Dick Clark didn't like the violence in Lloyd Price's hit version of Stag. So he asked Price to go back in the studio and re-record it. Time and time again, Clark is accused of this, but I've never seen any proof, or a definitive statement from anyone who was there, or anything I'd trust. Price appeared on Bandstand and sang Stag unbowdlerized, with the shooting intact, so I question just how much of the blame for this rests on Dick Clark's head.

This version has no Stetson hat, no killing, not even any gambling or drinking. Here Stag and Billy argue, not over cheating at dice or politics, but over Stag's girlfriend. These lyrics are so terrible, I have to assume they're at least a little tongue-in-cheek. Stagger Lee, the badass to end all badasses, is turned into a little whiny bitch in this version: "I don't wanna see him no more"??

Musically, I still like this version -- since it was recorded at basically the same time, with as far as I can tell the same musicians, it doesn't suffer from the usual curse of rerecordings. (And boo hiss for rerecordings!) Instead it suffers from the curse of the well-meaning censor. (Also, boo hiss for well-meaning censors!)

Come back next week to hear a much later rerecording...

Lloyd Price - Stagger Lee (nonviolent version)
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Stagger Lee Saturdays: Lloyd Price Month

Lloyd Price. (official wiki AMG) I know it seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it? I've been posting versions of this song for almost a year now, and I've never posted Lloyd's from 1958. The first version I ever heard, the first version to become a hit.

Sorry, Lloyd. To make it up to you a little, the entire month of February, I'm posting nothing but your versions of Stag. I have four excellent, each somewhat different, versions lined up. First, the classic 1958 original recording of Stag.

I have to admit -- I have no perspective whatsoever on this. This was the only version of Stag I heard until I was about 16, so for me, this version is, definitively, the song in its purest state. I know for a fact that that's silly and probably wrong, but I cannot step back from this at all to comment on it. Let me just say this: in 1958, African-American singers, with the sole exception of Nat King Cole, did not have Caucasian vocalists backing them up. That, plus the poppy jazzy instrumentation, helped make this upbeat murder ballad a huge success.

Next week, we'll hear the infamous "nonviolent" version...

Lloyd Price - Stagger Lee
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Happy Birthday Thurl Ravenscroft!

Today is February 6, which would've been Thurl Ravenscroft's 95th birthday. Around here, we call it Saint Thurl's Day. (You'll recall, I'm sure, that Thurl is the patron saint of She'll Grow Back.)

You can find a LOT of Thurl's stuff here and here, thanks to WFMU and Bob Purse, but this post contains a few of the other things in my collection.

In keeping with the theme of covering Etta James and Janis Joplin, Thurl does one of each, sort of. (By the way, I was hoping this story would've been reported earlier, so I could link it from one of those two posts, but sometimes the AP just won't cooperate!)

First, he helps out whitebread pop singer Georgia Gibbs (who was no stranger to "whiting-out" R & B records, then getting big hits with them) cover Etta's "Roll With Me Henry (The Wallflower)". Next, he joins in with the Modern Barbershop Quartet to give us the tale of "Me and Bobby McGee." (I know, it's really a Kris Kristofferson song, and one Monday soon I've got about a dozen versions for you all.)

Finally, I've featured a lot of Thurl from The Haunted Mansion, but here he is, narrating the story of Pirates of the Caribbean, and singing on "Yo Ho A Pirate's Life For Me." He also plays more than half the voices here. (For some reason, the folks at Disneyland Records decided to rerecord almost all the vocal tracks from the ride, rather than just use the ones they already had in the can. Bonus: more Thurl per minute, or TPM as I call it.)

Happy birthday, Thurl!

Georgia Gibbs - Dance With Me Henry
The Modern Barbershop Quartet - Me and Bobby McGee
Thurl Ravenscroft - Pirates of the Caribbean LP