In""Stagolee,"" one of history's best-known blues songs, a dispute between Billy Lyons and a""bad man"" called Stagolee ends in a shooting; variations of the ballad have been recorded by hundreds of ...

Burt Williams, Stagolee, and Jim Crow. One of the most important figures in the black folk tradition is the trickster. Such figures appear in many cultures around the world, of course—think of the ...