[9] A song called "Stack-a-Lee" was first mentioned in 1897, in the Kansas City Leavenworth Herald, as being performed by "Prof. Charlie Lee, the piano thumper".
[10] The earliest versions were likely field hollers and other work songs performed by African-American laborers, and were well known along the lower Mississippi River by 1910.
That year, musicologist John Lomax received a partial transcription of the song,[11] and in 1911, two versions were published in the Journal of American Folklore by the sociologist and historian Howard W.
Ma Rainey recorded "Stag O'Lee Blues", a different song based on the melody and words of "Frankie and Johnnie", the following year, with Louis Armstrong on cornet, and a version was recorded by Frank Hutchison on January 28, 1927, in New York, and is included in Harry Smith's famous Anthology of American Folk Music (Song 19 of 84).
Handy wrote that explanation in 1926, "Stack O' Lee" was already familiar in United States popular culture, with recordings of the song made by pop singers of the day, such as Cliff Edwards.
Other notable pre-war versions were recorded by Duke Ellington (1927), Cab Calloway (1931), Woody Guthrie (1941),[10] and Sidney Bechet (1945).
[15] Lloyd Price recorded an R&B rendition of the song as "Stagger Lee" in 1958, and it rose to the top of both the R&B and US pop charts in early 1959.
Price also recorded a lyrically toned-down version of the song that changed the shooting to an argument between two friends for his appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.