Some time ago, I told my friend Dave Bartholomew I was going to Midway. Dave, retired from the U.S. Marine Corps, was astonished. “Why are you going there?”
Three years later, Mississippi John Hurt issued his own “Stack O’ Lee Blues,” a decidedly more delicate and mournful take. He was fixated on Shelton’s five-dollar hat, the theft of which allegedly precipitated the murder. To Hurt, it was a pathetic rationale for a senseless act. But for other performers, the Stetson established Stack’s flash and fearlessness, a terrifying exercise of free will that roiled St. Louis’s white power structure. (Shelton received two pardons from two separate governors before dying of tuberculosis in 1912.) During the first part of 1950’s two-parter “Stack-A’Lee” written and performed by New Orleans singer/pianist Archibald it is noted that Billy took the Stetson in a dice game. In the second, the police kill Stack, but Stack dethrones the devil. (Call it a draw.) It is this version that Price born in neighboring Kenner, Louisiana probably knew best. Like Stack and Billy, he was a gambler. But Price gambled exclusively on hims
Lloyd Price, pioneer of rock in the early Fifties who had a UK hit with Personality – obituary
Price grew up singing gospel in church and listening to blues; his song Lawdy Miss Clawdy attracted the attention of Elvis Presley
10 May 2021 • 1:20pm
Lloyd Price at the 26th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, New York, March 2011
Credit: Gregory Pace/BEI/Shutterstock
Lloyd Price, who has died aged 88, was a blues singer who came to be regarded as a pioneer of rock’n’roll.
When Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Price’s debut single, was released in 1952 it topped the US R&B charts and laid a foundation with its pumping piano and swaggering blues vocal style for what would soon be known as rock music.
Eddie Ray and Lloyd Price in 2010 [Photo by Sally Young]
R&B vocalist Lloyd Price died May 3, 2021 at the age of 88 due to complications of diabetes. Price was a part of the New Orleans R&B/rock n roll revolution in the early 1950s. His first recording, Lawdy Miss Clawdy, was a hit for Specialty Records in 1952. It topped the Billboard R&B chart for seven weeks. In 1959, his song Personality hit a million in sales. He was both a prolific songwriter and gifted singer.
Price was born in Kenner on March 9, 1933. He was one of 11 children. His musical training began as a child when he learned trumpet and piano and sang in his church s choir. At 18, he formed his first band, the Blue Boys. In 1952, Price s big break came when he sat in with Dave Bartholomew s band one night. Dave liked what he heard so he invited Price to J&M Recording Studio to try to record something. They laid down Lawdy Miss Clawdy, a Price original, with Fats Domino on piano. Dave then sent the tapes