{"id":1387,"date":"2016-09-30T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T08:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2016-09-28T09:43:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T08:43:56","slug":"song-of-the-week-stack-o-lee-stagger-lee-by-taj-mahal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1387","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Stack O&#8217; Lee (Stagger Lee)&#8221; by Taj Mahal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Stack O&#8217;Lee (Stagger Lee)&#8221; by Taj Mahal:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lHzCx76H7UE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I heard Taj Mahal&#8217;s version of &#8220;Stagger Lee&#8221; Monday night while listening to my friend Kara&#8217;s radio show on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrcu.fm\/\" target=\"_blank\">WRCU-FM<\/a>. I&#8217;ve liked Taj Mahal&#8217;s music for a long time (I heard him live once back in the 1990s), though I don&#8217;t listen to him all that often. Every time I do listen to Taj Mahal, though, I realize what I&#8217;m missing by not listening to him more.\u00a0 There are a zillion versions of this song, and it&#8217;s worth, if you don&#8217;t know already, looking up the background to the song, which is basically a murder ballad about a guy killing his rival for knocking off his hat (which is a worse insult than it sounds).\u00a0 Taj Mahal introduces it in this performance as a country blues, and what I love about his interpretation is the way he turns it into his own song and sound while keeping that country blues foundation in place.\u00a0 He&#8217;s a wonderful guitar player, with a sound that is very much his own, and Taj Mahal is also, as you hear here, a wonderful singer, too; add to that the intelligence of his interpretation and you&#8217;ve got some magic.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Stack%20O%27%20Lee%20%28Stagger%20Lee%29%22%20by%20Taj%20Mahal\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Stack O&#8217;Lee (Stagger Lee)&#8221; by Taj Mahal: I heard Taj Mahal&#8217;s version of &#8220;Stagger Lee&#8221; Monday night while listening to my friend Kara&#8217;s radio show on WRCU-FM. I&#8217;ve liked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Stack%20O%27%20Lee%20%28Stagger%20Lee%29%22%20by%20Taj%20Mahal\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}