The Annotated African American Folktales
Page 56
But it warn’t nothing but Stackolee gambling in the dark.
Stackolee threw seven.
Billy said, It ain’t that way.
You better go home and come back another day.
Stackolee shot Billy four times in the head
And left that fool on the floor damn near dead.
Stackolee decided he’d go up to Sister Lou’s.
Said, Sister Lou! Sister Lou, guess what I done done?
I just shot and killed Billy, your big-head son.
Sister Lou said, Stackolee, that can’t be true!
You and Billy been friends for a year or two.
Stackolee said, Woman, if you don’t believe what I said,
Go count the bullet holes in that son-of-a-gun’s head.
Sister Lou got frantic and all in a rage,
Like a tea hound dame on some frantic gage.
She got on the phone, Sheriff, Sheriff, I want you to help poor me.
I want you to catch that bad son-of-a-gun they call Stackolee.
Sheriff said, My name might begin with an s and end with an f
But if you want that bad Stackolee you got to get him yourself.
So Stackolee left, he went walking down the New Haven track.
A train come along and flattened him on his back.
He went up in the air and when he fell
Stackolee landed right down in hell.
He said, Devil, devil, put your fork up on the shelf
’Cause I’m gonna run this devilish place myself.
There came a rumbling on the earth and a tumbling on the ground,
That bad son-of-a-gun Stackolee, was turning hell around.
He ran across one of his ex-girl friends down there.
She was Chock-full-o’-nuts and had pony-tail hair.
She said, Stackolee, Stackolee, wait for me.
I’m trying to please you, can’t you see?
She said, I’m going around the corner but I’ll be right back.
I’m gonna see if I can’t stack my sack.
Stackolee said, Susie Belle, go on and stack your sack.
But I just might not be here when you get back.
Meanwhile, Stackolee went with the devil’s wife and with his girl friend, too.
Winked at the devil and said, I’ll go with you.
The devil turned around to hit him a lick.
Stackolee knocked the devil down with a big black stick.
Now, to end this story, so I heard tell,
Stackolee, all by his self, is running hell.
Stagolee (also known as Stackolee, Stacker Lee, Staggerlee) represents the antihero, the Badman who lives outside the law, defies authority, and knows no social boundaries. He is far removed from cabins and fields and emerges from an urban setting of gambling, drinking, womanizing, and exchanging fire. His badge of courage has more to do with violating accepted codes of conduct than conforming to them. Unlike the “noble robber” or “good outlaw” of Western culture (the Robin Hood figure who rights wrongs and steals from the rich to give to the poor), the Badman is cruel and vengeful. Historian Lawrence Levine sees the figure’s origins in “the most oppressed and deprived strata” and describes how he operates apart from and above the law in a celebration of self-destructive bravado. Within the social circumstances of the Badman’s world, “to assert any power at all is a triumph” (1977, 418).
The legend of Stagolee began with the blues in the 1890s. But it has also been traced to a field holler among slaves and a tune from Southern prisons, where it was sung to the rhythms of hard labor. Charles Haffner of Mississippi claimed to have sung about Stagolee as early as 1895, while Will Starks, another Mississippi resident, stated that he learned the song in a labor camp near St. Louis (Levine, 1977, 413). The folklorist Howard Odum reports that the song was widely known throughout the South by 1910.
In 1911, Odum published two versions of “Stacker Lee.” Both recount the murder of Billy Lyons, after he and Stacker Lee quarrel about a Stetson hat while gambling. Longer versions offer details on Stacker Lee’s arrest and execution. Over time, the ballad was encoded with spiritual and superstitious markers, with Stacker Lee telling Satan that he is planning to usurp his role and “rule hell by myself.” Stacker Lee’s affiliation with the blues and the “dens of iniquity” in which they were played, suggests that his story emphatically links the secular music of the blues (as opposed to sacred spirituals) with corrupt practices that are all the devil’s work.
Since 1911, Stagolee has been the subject of toasts, songs, raps, and tales. Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Gwendolyn Brooks wrote prose and poetry inspired by his story. Duke Ellington performed a version of the song, and artists ranging from James Brown and Wilson Pickett to Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead have made recordings of it. The poet Carl Sandburg evidently loved the tune. Cultural critic Greil Marcus tells us that the “black American has never tired of hearing and never stopped living out” the legend of Stagolee (66). According to novelist and historian Cecil Brown, the ballad of Stagolee did not emerge until 1895, when a man named Lee Shelton shot another St. Louis resident named William Lyons (2003). But others have asserted that Stacker Lee was a Confederate cavalry officer, and still others claim that he was the son of the Lee family of Memphis, who owned steamers that moved up and down the Mississippi. What becomes clear in surveying the vast literature on the Badman is that he has been pieced together from fragments of histories and stories to produce a figure larger than life and twice as unnatural—an outlaw who tests limits and serves as cautionary example as much as cultural hero.
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1 gatlin gun: The Gatling gun is a rapid-fire weapon said to be a forerunner of the machine gun.
2 smoking hop: Hops are in the same family as cannabis and can be used as an alternative to marijuana.
FRANKIE AND JOHNNY
Frankie and Johnny were lovers, O Lordy, how they could love.
Swore to be true to each other, true as the stars above;
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie she was a good woman, just like everyone knows.
She spent a hundred dollars for a suit of Johnny’s clothes.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie and Johnny went walking, Johnny in a brand-new suit,
“Oh, good Lord,” says Frankie, “but don’t my Johnny look cute?”
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie went down to Memphis, she went on the evening train.
She paid one hundred dollars for Johnny’s watch and chain.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie lived in the crib house, crib house had only two doors;
Gave all her money to Johnny, he spent it on those call-house whores.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Johnny’s mother told him, and she was mighty wise,
“Don’t spend Frankie’s money on that parlor Alice Pry.
You’re Frankie’s man, and you’re doing her wrong.”
Frankie and Johnny were lovers, they had a quarrel one day,
Johnny he up and told Frankie, “Bye-bye, babe, I’m going away.
I was your man, but I’m just gone.”
Frankie went down to the corner to buy a glass of beer.
Says to the fat bartender, “Has my lovingest man been here?
He was my man, but he’s doing me wrong.”
“Ain’t going to tell you no story, ain’t going to tell you no lie,
I seen your man ’bout an hour ago with a girl named Alice Pry.
If he’s your man, he’s doing you wrong.”
Frankie went down to the pawnshop, she didn’t go there for fun;
She hocked all of her jewelry, bought a pearl-handled forty-four gun
For to get her man who was doing her wrong.
Frankie she went down Broadway, with her gun in her hand,
For he’s my man, won’t treat me right.”
Frankie went down to the hotel, looked in the window so high,
There she saw her loving Johnny a-loving up Alice Pry.
Damn his soul, he was mining in coal.
Frankie went down to the hotel, she rang that hotel bell.
“Stand back, all of you chippies, or I’ll blow you all to hell.
I want my man, who’s doing me wrong.”
Frankie threw back her kimono, she took out her forty-four,
Root-a-toot-toot three times she shot right through that hotel door.
She was after her man who was doing her wrong.
Johnny grabbed off his Stetson, “Oh, good Lord, Frankie, don’t shoot!”
But Frankie pulled the trigger and the gun went root-a-toot-toot.
He was her man, but she shot him down.
Johnny he mounted the staircase, crying, “Oh, Frankie, don’t you shoot!”
Three times she pulled that forty-four-a-root-a-toot-toot-toot-toot.
She shot her man who threw her down.
First time she shot him he staggered, second time she shot him he fell,
Third time she shot him, O Lordy, there was a new man’s face in hell.
She killed her man who had done her wrong.
“Roll me over easy, roll me over slow,
Roll me over on my left side for the bullet hurt me so.
I was her man, but I done her wrong.
“Oh my baby, kiss me, one before I go.
Turn me over on my right side, the bullet hurt me so.
I was your man, but I done you wrong.”
Johnny he was a gambler, he gambled for the gain,
The very last words that Johnny said were, “High-low Jack and the game.”
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie heard a rumbling away down in the ground.
Maybe it was Johnny where she had shot him down.
He was her man and she done him wrong.
Oh, bring on your rubber-tired hearses, bring on your rubber-tired hacks,
They’re taking Johnny to the cemetery and they ain’t a-bringing him back.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Eleven macks a-riding to the graveyard, all in a rubber-tired hack,
Eleven macks a-riding to the graveyard, only ten a-coming back.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.
Frankie went to the coffin, she looked down on Johnny’s face,
She said, “Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. I wish I could take his place.
He was my man and I done him wrong.”
One of the most popular of all ballads in the United States tells the story of Frankie Baker’s shooting of her boyfriend Allen, or Albert, Britt, in 1899. In the tradition of the murder ballad, which recounts events leading up to a killing, the song tells about passions running high after Johnny abandons Frankie. The refrain of most versions—“He was my man, but he done me wrong”—sides with Frankie, although in some variants she shows remorse about her wrongdoing: “He was my man and I done him wrong.”
Frankie Baker was born in 1876 in St. Louis and was twenty-two years old when she met the seventeen-year-old Albert. As a teenager, Frankie had suffered severe facial wounds inflicted by the knife-wielding girlfriend of a waiter she was seeing. One evening, soon after meeting Frankie, Albert Britt entered and won first prize in a dance contest with a woman named Alice Pryor. When the pair met up later after the contest, Frankie claimed that Albert threatened her with a knife. It was only in self-defense, she claimed, that she pulled a gun from under her pillow and shot Albert. The jury ruled the killing justifiable homicide and accepted the plea of self-defense.
“Frankie and Al” became popular just a few months after Albert’s death, but Albert Britt’s father was evidently so incensed by the ballad that the title was changed to “Frankie and Johnny.” The first published version of the ballad appeared in 1904. Frankie herself spent a good part of her life defending her name and bringing lawsuits against motion picture companies for damaging her reputation. “Frankie Baker wants to appropriate for her own use, one of the finest ballads of American folklore,” the defense claimed. “Don’t make her a rich woman, because forty years ago, she shot a little boy here in St. Louis” (Brown 2006, I, 465). She died in 1952 in Oregon, after being declared mentally ill.
The ballad, which some musicologists claim predates the murder of Albert Britt and may simply have been based on a made-up story, has inspired several films, two made in the 1930s, as well as Frankie and Johnny starring Elvis Presley and directed by Frederick de Cordova (1966), and Frankie and Johnny starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer and directed by Garry Marshall (1991).
RAILROAD BILL
Railroad Bill
Some one went home an’ tole my wife
All about—well, my pas’ life,
It was that bad Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill,
He never work, an’ he never will,
Well, it’s that bad Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill so mean an’ so bad,
Till he tuk ev’ything that farmer had,
It’s that bad Railroad Bill.
I’m goin’ home an’ tell my wife,
Railroad Bill try to take my life,
It’s that bad Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill so desp’rate an’ so bad,
He take ev’ything po’ womens had,
An’ it’s that bad Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill
Railroad Bill mighty bad man,
Shoot dem lights out o’ de brakeman’s han’.
It’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill mighty bad man,
Shoot the lamps all off the stan’,
An it’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
First on table, nex’ on wall,
Ole corn whiskey cause of it all,
It’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Ole McMillan had a special train,
When he got there wus a shower of rain.
Wus lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Ev’ybody tole him he better turn back,
Railroad Bill wus goin’ down track.
An it’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Well, the policemen all dressed in blue,
Comin’ down sidewalk two by two,
Wus lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill had no wife,
Always lookin’ fer somebody’s life,
An it’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Railroad Bill was the worst ole coon,
Killed McMillan by de light o’ de moon,
It’s lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Ole Culpepper went up on Number Five,
Goin’ bring him back, dead or alive,
Wus lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
Standin’ on corner didn’t mean no harm,
Policeman grab me by my arm,
Wus lookin’ fer Railroad Bill.
SOURCE: Howard W. Odum, “Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes,” Journal of American Folklore, 289–91.
Fragments of what later became known as the Railroad Bill ballad were collected by folklorists in the early part of the twentieth century. They range from humorous doggerel to deadly serious pronouncements: “Talk about yer five er yer ten dollar bill; / Ain’t no bill like de Railroad Bill” and “Railroad Bill cut a mighty big dash; / He killed Bill Johnson with a lightning-flash.” Over time, Railroad Bill came to be connected with Morris Slater, a turpentine worker from Alabama, who killed a police officer and fled town on a freight train. He evidently made a living by selling canned goods stolen from freight trains to African Americans living near the tracks. In 1895 he shot and killed Sheriff E. S. McMillan, who had made a campaign promise to hunt down Railr
oad Bill. With a twelve hundred dollar bounty on his head, Railroad Bill realized that his days were numbered, and, just a year later, two men gunned him down at a store in Alabama. The ballads that emerged over the course of the twentieth century are only loosely connected to the story of Morris Slater, and they are often improvised and cobbled together rather than driven by one man’s history.
THE TITANIC
THE TITANIC SHIP
Carolina Slim is a poet, a wandering black minstrel, who sings of his own prowess constantly, as longshoreman, fighter and lover. Slim has a favorite composition, though; this one is about his girl, Agnes, he vows, but Agnes is not mentioned throughout the song, only The Titanic Ship, the title of the epic. This song he sings most tenderly, most passionately.
“It’s a long story,” Carolina says. “When the Titanic sunk me and my baby was fightin’. When the word come that the ship was down, she told me she didn’t want me no more. Then after she gone and left me, I thunk up The Titanic Ship. It goes like this:
I always did hear that the fif’ of May was a wonderful day,
You believe me, everybody had somethin’ to say,
Telephone and telegraphs to all parts of town,
That the great Titanic ship was a-goin’ down.
The captain and the mate was standin’ on deck havin’ a few words,
’Fore they know it, the Titanic had done hit a big iceberg.
Had a colored guy on there call Shine, who come down from below,
And hollered, “Water is comin’ in the fireroom do’!”
Shine jumped off that ship and begun to swim,
Thousands of white folks watchin’ him.