ooh. yeah. If it wouldn't be a hassle.

No hassle. Email your address to my profile addy.

I don't think Greil has listened to more than five rap records in his life

I bet he's listened to at least 10 or 12. Anyway, after I wrote my earlier post I started thinking that one of the chapters in Flyboy in the Buttermilk had Staggerlee in the title. Haven't found it online, though, & my copy is in storage. Maybe I'm thinking of the chapter on Prince, Eddie Murphy &... who? Wynton? Something about how Jimi, Pryor & Miles really had Stack in them whereas their artistic heirs had the Staggerlee trappings, but there was a calculation in them that belied the notion that they were somehow imbued with Stack's outside the law persona. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong or just doing a bad job of describing it. Tate's certainly more qualified than Marcus to write about hip hop. I'd like to read his take on the Staggerlee-derived gangsta mythology bumping up against all the dead gangstas from Tupac and Biggie on down. That's another great thing about "Wrong 'Em Boyo" (last time I'll bring it up, I promise) (for a while at least) -- it's juxtaposition with "Death or Glory". The romanticized view of the badass living the life he wants to and playing by his own rules vs. "every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world" and how Staggerlee's "death or glory becomes just another story."

I'll check my Flyboy when I get home, as mine is conveniently on the living room bookshelf.

I remember reading a collection of folk stories (real ones - not the Paul Bunyon ones. Not that I don't like the Paul Bunyon or Pecos Bill ones. In fact, I kind of love that they're fake folk stories and then took on a life of their own.) and they had a great one titled...."The Oxblood Stetson" I think. Very much out of that Staggerlee era and myth.

Yeah, it's a variation on Staggerlee where he makes a deal with the devil:

Stagger Lee, Occult Dealmaker

In addition to being an enormous badass, according to some versions of the story Stagger Lee had occult powers. In most versions of the story, these powers were derived from Stag's Stetson hat, which the Devil had traded him for his soul. According to B.A. Botkin in A Treasury of American Folklore: Stories, Ballads, and Traditions of the People, the hat was "an oxblood magic hat that folks claim he made from the raw hide of a man-eating panther that the devil had skinned alive." The hat allowed Stag to do "all kinds of magic and devilish things." Of course, since this was a deal with the Devil, there was a catch: if Stag ever lost the hat, he would "lose his head, and kill a good citizen, and run right smack into his doom."

Almost forgot. When I was looking for the Greg Tate stuff I found rocklist.net's New Book of Rock Lists, which was fun because my copy of that is also in storage. It's not easy collecting books in New York. Loved this one. Check out number 5. Guess Rick Rubin wasn't solely responsible for all the Zep samples at Def Jam.

Bill Stephney’s Top 20 Recordings of All Time

As a founding member of the Bomb Squad, Bill Stephney was one of the principal architects of the first two Public Enemy albums as well as Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. *= LP

1. Good Times – Chic
2. Sucker MCs – Run DMC
3. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back – Public Enemy*
4. Heartbeat – Taana Gardner
5. Led Zeppelin (1st Album) – Led Zeppelin*
6. Make if Funky – James Brown
7. Love TKO – Teddy Pendergrass
8. Straight Outta Compton – NWA*
9. Gratitude – Earth, Wind & Fire*
10. Raising Hell – Run DMC*
11. Dance to the Drummer’s Beat – Herman Kelly
12. Set it Off – Stafe
13. Zenyatta Mondatta – Police*
14. Don’t Look Any Further – Dennis Edwards with Siedah Garrett
15. I Know You, I Live You – Chaka Khan
16. Licensed to Ill – Beastie Boys*
17. Raw – Big Daddy Kane
18. Sugar Sperm – Captain Skyy
19. Songs in the Key of Life – Stevie Wonder*
20. Mr Magic – Grover Washington Jr

Yeah, it's a variation on Staggerlee where he makes a deal with the devil

Cf. the Robert Johnson section of Mystery Train.

Damn, who was sampling Stewart Copeland?

It Takes a Nation of Millions... is so dense that I wouldn't be surprised if the Bomb Squad threw in anything. "'Havin' My Baby'? Yeah, I can do something with that." So Zenyatta Mondatta doesn't throw me. Pick hits: "Louder Than a Bomb" and "Rebel Without a Pause"

Jon, your wife is a very graceful writer.

Jon, your wife is a very graceful writer.

I can vouch that she is a very graceful person altogether in both manner and speech.