"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina. It is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio. This version was a multi-format hit, reaching #1 in Billboard, the Billboard R&B listing, and appearing in the Cashbox country music top 20. It fits within the wider genre of Appalachian 'sweetheart murder ballad' songs such as "Down in the Willow Garden", but "Tom Dooley" is based on a real event. The song was selected as one of the American Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. In the documentary Appalachian Journey, folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the "original source" for the song. Although there is at least one earlier known recording, by Grayson and Whitter made in 1929, approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording, the Kingston Trio took their version from Frank Warner's singing. Warner had learned the song from Proffitt, who learned it from his Aunt Nancy Prather, whose parents had known both Laura Foster and Tom Dula and who had the song as part of their cultural heritage. Wikipedia [ - ]

"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura... [ + ]