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I wrote in a previous post about the traditional song, Stagolee which tells the story of the killing of one Billy Delions by a bad man, cruel Stagolee. I was able to find, quoted online, a newspaper from St. Louis, MO in 1895 regarding the shooting of one Bill Curtis by Lee Sheldon in an argument during which Curtis grabbed Sheldon’s Stetson hat. I thought I’d take a shot at Frankie and Johnny, another song with many variants, also involving the story of a shooting and presumably dating from around the same time.

St. Louis, Missouri must have been a wild town in the 1890s, or the city was fortunate enough to have in it’s midst a songwriter of immense talent, who chronicled, in his ballads, the history of it’s wild side, at least according to Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus, authors of the book The Rose and the Briar. In their chapter on the song “Frankie and Johnny” they quote the St. Louis Republic of Oct 16, 1899:

Negro Shot By Woman

After midnight, Sunday Allen (Albert) Britt, Colored, was shot and badly wounded by Frankie Baker, also Colored. The shooting occurred at the woman’s home at 317 Targee Street, after a quarrel over another woman named Nelly Bly. Britt had been to a Cakewalk at Stolle’s Dance Halls, where he and Nelly Bly had won a prize. His condition at City Hospital is serious . . . The Police, pending investigation made no arrest.

and on Oct 19th:

Amid The Suffering

Alan Britt’s brief experience in the art of love cost him his life. He died at the City Hospital, Wednesday night from knife wounds inflicted by Frankie Baker, an ebony-hued cakewalker. Britt was also colored and he was seventeen years old. He met Frankie at the Orange Blossom’s hall and was smitten with her. Thereafter they were lovers.
In the rear of 212 Targee Street lived Britt. There his sweet heart wended her way a few nights ago and lectured Allen for his alleged duplicity. Allen’s reply was not intended to cheer the dusky damsel and a glint of steel gleamed in the darkness. An instant later the boy fell to the floor mortally wounded. Frankie is locked up in four corners.

Apparently Frankie Baker was able to successfully plead self defense and was acquitted of the charge of murder. She sued Republic Pictures after their 1936 film, “Frankie and Johnny” was released, claiming ownership of the story. She lost, the defense being able to show that there were more than 300 variants of the, by then, traditional song. Elvis Presley starred in a remake of the film in 1966.

Wilentz and Marcus attribute the writing of both the original “Stagolee” and “Frankie and Johnny” ballads to a local barroom singer and piano player named Bill Dooley. Dooley was a prolific songwriter and, in the tradition of balladeers since medieval times, would write songs about contemporary events, turning them out quickly in order to get the attention of his transient audience. Bill Dooley to them is an artist on a par with his contemporary, W. C. Handy, but without access to copyright because of his status as an itinerant street singer.

The earliest known recorded version of “Frankie and Johnny” dates to 1914 and was copyrighted by Hughie Cannon, the author of “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey,” under the title “He Done Me Wrong” and subtitled “Death of Bill Bailey.” Many versions of the song have been recorded, sometimes calle “Frankie and Albert or “Frankie’s Blues.” The name Johnnie was apparently substituted for Albert in 1912 by Frank and Bert Leighton, who copyrighted another version of the song, their second.

Here are a few of the many recorded versions. Let’s start with a version by Mississippi John Hurt “Frankie,” recorded in 1928

Here is blues singer Furry Lewis, recorded sometime in the 1930s singing “Frankie and Johnny.”

Everyone from Elvis Presley to Sam Cooke to Mae West has done a version of the song. Here is Lindsy Lohan, in the 2006 movie, “A Prairie Home Companion.” Lindsey doesn’t know the words, but she soldiers on.

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