5/1/1868 They hanged Tom Dooley

May 1, 1868.  People who complain about modern pop music glorifying violence may forget the huge hit which helped goose the folk music revival.  The Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" was a number one hit in 1958.

It was written by Thomas Land, and based on the murder of Laura Foster. in North Carolina.  Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) was hung for the  crime on May 1, 1868.  Many people say he didn't do it.

The Kingston Trio learned their version from someone who learned it from Frank Proffitt.  I have heard that when Proffitt heard their recording he was furious. Thought they were making fun of him.

That's a picture of Tom Dula in his Confederate uniform, by the way.

12/27/1895 Staggerlee shot Billy

December 27, 1895.  According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, on this day a pimp named "Stag" Lee Shelton killed William Lyons in a bar in St. Louis.  Apparently Lyon had stolen his Stetson hat.


A barroom killing may not sound like big news.  But the song that came from the event, "Staggerlee," has been recorded more than 400 times.  Apparently the first recording was in 1923  by... Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians????

In the most common version of the song Staggerlee dies in the electric chair and winds up taking over hell.  (He was  a bad man, that Staggerlee.)  In real life there was a hung jury.  On the second trial he was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail.  Later he was pardoned, for some strange reason, and killed another William during a burglary.  And he was pardoned again but died prior to release.

There is a fascinating website about the story/song.  Its creator says: No other song has so transcended its humble beginnings and been re-invented in so many genres, in so many media and by so many artists.

11/17/1958 Tom Dooley hangs at #1

November 17, 1958.  Tom Dula hung in 1869 for the murder of Laurie Foster.  There is still debate as to whether he was the guilty party - or the only guilty one.  What is beyond debate is that on this date the Kingston Trio had a number one hit with their version of an old folk song about the crime: "Tom Dooley."  It was one of the high water marks of the folk music revival.

10/26/1959 A vicious criminal tops the pop charts

October 26, 1959.  Forget about gangster rap.  If you want a hit song praising murder and mayhem
look at "Mack The Knife," performed by Bobby Darin.  It reached Number One on the charts today.  Originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer," the song appeared in The Three Penny Opera, in 1928, written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

While Darin's pop version left out the verses about child rape and the woman stabbed in the chest, he did warble enthusiastically about "a body oozing life," and someone being dumped into the water with a bag of cement.  

Ah, for the innocence of the 1950s.

8/26/1967 Billie Joe goes off a bridge and tops a chart

August 26, 1967.  Bobbie Gentry had a first album most songwriters can barely dream of.   On this date "Ode to Billie Joe" reached Number One on the Billboard chart and stayed there for a month.  It's a song about a family reacting - or more accurately, NOT reacting - to a young man's suicide.  What fascinated the audience was a mystery: What had the narrator and Billie Joe McAllister been throwing off the Talahatchie Bridge?  And how did that relate to his suicide?  No answers came but eight Grammy nominations did, and eventually a movie.  Gentry, however, says the point she was trying to make was the indifference of the family to their neighbor's death - and to the narrator's suffering.

1/13/1968 Johnny Cash goes to prison

January 13, 1968.  On this day Johnny Cash recorded a live album at Folsom Prison in California.  He won his first Grammy Award for his live performance of "Folsom Prison Blues," a song he wrote while serving in the Air Force in Germany in the 1950s.

Cash said he came up with the famous line "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die," by thinking of the worst possible reason  to kill someone.  That line was yanked from the single version after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.  The song hit Number 1.