As disappointed as I am by the other reviewers here, is how overjoyed I am, now that I have read this book. Upon coming across this book wandering in a book store (sorry, Amazon), I literally tossed aside the other books in my hands and proceeded to read most of the book in the store, before rushing up to the register and tossing over my hard-earned cash for this incredible story!



I had heard the song - the Lloyd Price version - on oldies stations as a child; it had never occurred to me that it might actually be based upon a true story. And once that possibility came to light, I needed to know everything there was to know about Stagger Lee. But the more the is to learn about Stagger, the more there is to know, as myth and legend are wound together with what we believe we know to be true.



The author tries to bring us along the path he took, the journey he made to uncover the real Stagger Lee; this leads to what the other reviewers decribe as "poor editing", when what we thought we learned as fact on one page turns into just another rumor. And when you have a story that grows as organically as this one has and a tale with this many authors who claim to be the original, then this is bound to happen.



At the end, even being able to say, "we think this is how it went down", provides a fascinating case study of late 19th century Negro life, in that post-slavery, post-Reconstruction world in which being black meant anything you were able to claim as your own was tenuous, at best. And sometimes, getting into a fight over a hat was the best choice to be made.