“Stagger Lee” (1959) by Lloyd Price updated an old St. Louis folk song about a notorious gunfight. Price’s energetic rock’n’roll version shot to #1 in February 1959, holding for four weeks:. Its tale of “Bad, bad Stagger Lee” shocked some but captured the era’s fascination with edgy storytelling. Price was 24 at the time; decades later this song still tops lists of great rock-era tunes, and Rolling Stone ranked it on their top 500 songs::.