Tom Dooley (song)

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Tom Dooley is a factual folk song from the United States that is about a supposed murderer who is hanged for what he did . The folk song became known worldwide in 1958 through the version of the Kingston Trio .

Criminal case

Thomas C. Dula (born June 20, 1844) lived in the Reedy Branch / Elkville, Wilkes County , North Carolina . On April 24, 1862, he went to the 42 Confederate Infantry Regiment , where he was promoted to military musician in February 1864 . On March 10, 1865, opposing troops captured him and released him after taking the oath on June 11, 1865. Afterwards Dula returned to his hometown, where he had at least two girlfriends at the same time: Laura Foster and her married cousin Ann Melton. On May 25, 1866 Laura Foster wanted to marry her friend Dula and secretly rode away from home. When Foster's horse returned without her, a search was launched, during which Dula came under suspicion of murder. Therefore Dula fled to a neighboring community; there he worked under the pseudonym "Tom Hall" for Colonel James WM Grayson.

Foster's murder took place between May 25 and 28, 1866, but neither the time nor the circumstances could ever be fully clarified.

Dula was issued an arrest warrant at the end of June . While on the run from Grayson's farm, he was found by Sheriff WE Watson's assistant and taken to prison. Grayson helped arrest Dula and was personally involved in the repatriation to North Carolina. On September 1, 1866, Foster's body was discovered with knife wounds in the left half of the chest. Laura Foster had been brutally stabbed with a large knife. Tom Dula was defended free of charge (“ pro bono ”) by former North Carolina governor Zebulon D. Vance and Dula declared “not guilty”. However, he was largely silent on the allegations. On October 21, 1866, the Statesville, North Carolina court found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging . His challenge to the guilty verdict led to a renegotiation. On January 20, 1868, he was again sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on May 1, 1868. Not on a white oak tree, as it is called in the song, but with a trapdoor gallows constructed for this purpose . And not in a lonely valley ("in some lonesome valley"), but in Statesville.

“Gentlemen, do you see my hand, do you see how it trembles and trembles? I've never pulled a hair out of this girl! "

- Dula's last words

Vance had also defended Ann Melton, the other suspect. She was acquitted after Dula's death sentence. The deed and the trial became well known in distant New York, where the New York Herald Tribune continuously reported on the proceedings. The specialist literature on the Dula case partly assumes that Melton was the actual murderer and that Dula wanted to protect her with his false testimony. This assumption is supported by the fact that Melton reacted jealously of the engagement and the announced wedding of Dula with her cousin Laura Foster. It was then said that Melton murdered Foster in order to eliminate her rival and win back Dula's affection.

Poems and texts

Army Captain Thomas Land wrote the poem "The Murder of Laura Foster" shortly after the execution, which is divided into the description of the murder, the search for the murderer and the subsequent investigation. Another poem from that time was called "Tom Dula's Lament", which contained the metaphor "hanging from a white oak tree". A third text “Tom Dula” begins with the words “hang down your head Tom Dula” made famous by the song. These three texts are considered to be the sources for the creation of the folk song. The poems reflect neither the course of events nor the participants in the form determined by the court at the time. This is partly reflected in the music recordings. For some Sings writers, Grayson was the sheriff or a schoolteacher; therefore, book author West sees the poems and songs about Dooley as a montage of facts and myths.

Music productions

Grayson & Whitter - Tom Dooley

The first surviving recording of this folk song comes from the old-time duo Grayson and Whitter , who recorded the title Tom Dooley / On The Bank of The Old Tennessee on September 30, 1929 for Victor (# 40235) with violin and guitar . On the record label , the singer Gillian Banmon (GB) Grayson was noted as the composer . He was the great-nephew of Colonel Grayson, who had illegally employed Tom Dula. Their song, which was only released on May 2, 1930, sold just 4,000 pieces - also due to the Depression - and hardly contributed to the spread of the folk song.

The spelling of the family name Dula, which was changed here for the first time, goes back to the pronunciation of an ending "a" as a "y", which sounds like "Dooley". This debate is typical of the old dialect in the Appalachians , such as those about Grand Ole Opry occurs.

The music researchers Anne and Frank Warner visited Frank Noah Proffitt (in some sources "Profitt") in the Appalachian Mountains in June 1938, where they were looking for folklore songs, and two years later in 1940 recorded the song Tom Dula on a portable tape (record recording ) to (duration: 46 seconds) without knowing the recording of the old-time duo. Warner then contacted the famous music researcher Alan Lomax in New York, who finally took the song with Warner's permission in 1947 in his book Folk Song: USA as No. 82 (of 111 titles). Here it was made clear that the text and music were adapted by Frank Warner. The book author West proves that text and musical documents of the song can be found as early as June 22, 1921, composed by Charlie Davenport. Lomax then took care of the copyright registration with BMI , which registered music researchers Alan Lomax and Frank M. Warner. In addition, the Lomax book contributed to the spread of folkloric works, Frank Warner himself recorded the song in 1952 (LP American Folk Songs and Ballads at Elektra # ELK3 ). Other versions followed, but with modified text, especially by the Folksay Trio in a fast version (LP Ballads And Dances vol. 2 ; Stinson # SLP6 , 1953), Paul Clayton (LP Bloody Ballads ; Riverside # 12-615 , 1956) and the Tarriers (LP The Tarriers ; Glory # PG1200, 1957).

Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley

The newly established Kingston Trio took over the song on their first LP The Kingston Trio ( Capitol T # 996 ). The majority of experts assume that the trio first heard the song in August 1957 in the famous "Purple Onion Club" in San Francisco and then recognized it on the Folksay trio's album. Unlike the original, this version has only three verses and the refrain is repeated four times. The Kingston Trio was only in the recording studio for the second time when Tom Dooley was formed on February 5, 1958 . Take 5 with a tenor banjo by Bob Shane of this was used for the LP The Kingston Trio , which was released on June 1, 1958. The radio stations concentrated on airplay on Tom Dooley , so Capitol decided to decouple Tom Dooley / Ruby Red (Capitol # 4049) as a single and to release it on September 8, 1958. This got into the pop hit parade on September 29, 1958 , where it came in first place. The single title improved LP sales and so it came first on the LP charts. With this placement, folk music finally established itself as popular music . In Germany, the English version of the Kingston Trio reached first place on March 29, 1959 and stayed there for five weeks.

Copyright dispute

When Proffitt heard the song by the Kingston Trio on the Milton Berle TV show on November 19, 1958 , he was surprised that the Capitol Records label read "Traditional, arr. Dave Guard". The LP described the origin of the song as "the classic rendition of a folk song from the mountains of Tennessee". The arranger Dave Guard would receive all composer's royalties even though Alan Lomax and Frank M. Warner were registered as authors with the BMI. Proffitt and Lomax therefore sued for copyright infringement in early 1959 and reached an out-of-court settlement with their opponents in 1962. After that, all previous and future royalties went to Ludlow Music Publishing, which represented John A. Lomax, Alan Lomax and Frank Warner. At the beginning of 1959, 3.5 million Tom Dooley singles had already been sold and six million copies worldwide. A million copies of the LP were also sold. By 1961, the record company had sales of four million dollars through the folk trio . The Kingston Trio's hit was voted # 197 in the RIAA's Songs of the Century .

In a 58-minute film documentary from 1991, film author Alan Lomax named Frank Proffitt as the original source of this song. How Lomax, who was ignorant of copyright issues, meant this remained unclear. From his point of view, Proffitt was the source of the song. Proffitt himself had reported to the folk researchers Warner that he knew the song from tradition and so he is out of the question as a composer .

Folkways Records and Service Corp. signed Proffitt in 1962 and Folk-Legacy Records Inc. released the LP Frank Proffitt, of Reese, North Carolina in 1962 as their first album.

Cover versions

Nilsen Brothers - Tom Dooley

A total of 31 cover versions are registered with BMI . The title was honored with a BMI award because of its success. Lonnie Donegan presented a rhythmically fast skiffle version in November 1958, which came to third place on the charts in Great Britain. In Germany, the Nilsen Brothers were able to take first place for seven weeks with their German-language version published in December 1958 on January 31, 1959 and sell 800,000 copies before they were ousted by the Kingston Trio. Dieter Thomas Heck and Tom Astor also covered the song, Doc Watson recorded it in 1964 for Vanguard Records . Rob Ickes covered the piece as a bluegrass song for his album Hard Times in 1997 . Another version of the Chicago death / grind band Macabre came out on their mini album Morbid Campfire (2002).

In 1968 the folk singer Sheila Clark dedicated herself to the subject on her own record: "The Legend of Tom Dula and Other Tragic Love Ballads" contains, among other things, an a cappella version of the song that includes all 21 stanzas written by Thomas Land. Other titles on the record such as "The Ballad of Laura Forster" and "Tom Dula's Own Ballad" also outline the topic.

Neil Young published a harmoniously modified version of this old folk song on his album Americana in June 2012, largely reconstructing the traditional contemporary text by Thomas Land. At Young, the title was again "Tom Dula".

Movies

The success of the Kingston Trio had inspired a short film The Legend of Tom Dooley (German title: No Mercy for Tom Dooley ) in July 1959 with Michael Landon in the leading role and Richard Rust in a supporting role. The film, shot as a western, takes place during the American Civil War. In contrast to the title, it makes no reference to the legend of Tom Dula or any facts from this case. The fictional plot is designed to match the lyrics. In the 1958 American-Brazilian-German film Tom Dooley - Hero of the Green Hell , the song was recorded - albeit with a text that differs from the original.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Leigh Lundin: Who Killed Laura Foster? . In: Tom Dula . Criminal letter. February 21, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
  2. ↑ New references to the course of events can be found in the book by Franes H. Casstevens: Death in North Carolina's Piedmont: Tales of Murder, Suicside And Causes Unknown , 2006, p. 29 ff.
  3. ↑ Wilkes Co. Chamber of Commerce: History of Tom Dula Online (October 21, 2007) ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wilkesnc.org
  4. ^ The former attorney Vance himself came out of prison on July 6, 1865.
  5. ↑ John Foster West: The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula . 2002, ISBN 1-887905-55-3 , p. 31 ff.
  6. ↑ This can be seen in the spoken introduction of the Kingston Trio.
  7. ↑ Song and spoken text ( memento of the original from September 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.magistrix.de
  8. ^ John Foster West, The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula , 2002, ISBN 1-887905-55-3 , p. 50.
  9. ↑ a b Rob Lopresti: Boy Kills Girl . In: Tom Dooley . Criminal letter. January 17, 2010. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  10. ↑ Issued on CD Nothing Seems Better to Me - The Music of Frank Proffitt and North Carolina, Warner Collection, Vol. 2
  11. ↑ John Foster West: The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula . 2002, ISBN 1-887905-55-3 , p. 22 f.
  12. ↑ "... words and melody adapted and arranged by Frank Warner"
  13. ↑ John Foster West: The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula . 2002, ISBN 1-887905-55-3 , p. 23 f.
  14. ↑ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . 1985, p. 45
  15. ↑ In the liner notes for the Bear Family CD "The Kingston Trio: The Guard Years" Guard says that he heard the song from the Folksays.
  16. ^ A b Joseph Murrells: Million Selling Records . 1985, p. 117.
  17. ^ Association for Cultural Equity, 1991; Interview with Proffitt from minute 16
  18. ↑ Amaris O. Lynip, Proffitt Sang the Legend of Tom Dooley, The Democrat
  19. ^ Nilson Brothers
  20. ↑ Text version in German ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dpsg-materborn.de
  21. ↑ CD presentation on Folkways
  22. ^ Information on the re-publication in 1986
  23. ^ The Legend of Tom Dooley