Tom Dooley

E97649

"Tom Dooley" is a traditional American folk ballad, popularized during the mid-20th-century folk revival, that recounts the story of a man condemned for murder.

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Predicate Object
instanceOf American folk ballad
folk song
alternateSpelling Tom Dula NERFINISHED
associatedWith American folk revival NERFINISHED
Appalachian folk music
awarded Grammy Hall of Fame Award NERFINISHED
basedOn Life of Tom Dula NERFINISHED
Murder of Laura Foster NERFINISHED
chartSuccess Billboard Hot 100 hit NERFINISHED
collectedBy Frank Warner NERFINISHED
collectedFrom Frank Proffitt NERFINISHED
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
culturalImpact Helped spark late-1950s commercial folk boom
genre folk
murder ballad
hasCategory American murder ballads
Songs about capital punishment
Songs about crime
Songs based on actual events
hasLyric “Hang down your head, Tom Dooley”
“Poor boy, you’re bound to die”
historicalEventLinked Trial of Tom Dula in 1868 NERFINISHED
language English
mainCharacter Tom Dula NERFINISHED
narrativeForm first-person ballad
narrativeOutcome Execution of Tom Dula
notableRecordingYear 1958
popularizedBy The Kingston Trio NERFINISHED
recordedBy Doc Watson NERFINISHED
Frank Proffitt NERFINISHED
Lonnie Donegan NERFINISHED
The Kingston Trio NERFINISHED
The Limeliters NERFINISHED
regionOfCollection Appalachian Mountains NERFINISHED
settingLocation North Carolina NERFINISHED
Wilkes County, North Carolina NERFINISHED
subjectOf numerous cover versions
scholarly studies on folk ballads
theme execution
guilt
lost love
murder
punishment
timePeriod American Civil War era NERFINISHED
Post–Civil War period
transmission oral tradition
type traditional song

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Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.