Tom Dooley - The Chilly Winds

In 1958, the then-unknown Kingston Trio revolutionized popular music in America when a radio DJ in Salt Lake City began playing a single cut from the group's debut album over and over and calling other jocks around the country and getting them to do the same. Popular demand for the song prompted a reluctant Capitol Records to release the song as a single; its sales quickly hit a million units, shot up to two, and kept going. The song, of course, was an old North Carolina folk song, "Tom Dooley," the ballad of Civil War veteran Thomas Dula, who was hanged for a murder that many believe he did not commit. The hit song was the direct impetus that led to the boom in interest in acoustic folk music, both traditional and popularized, that swept the US in the late 50's through the mid 60s, leading in turn to folk-rock and singer/songwriter waves that later permeated AM radio. This rendition by The Chilly Winds (from the 2006 Mountain Music Festival in Colorado) attempts to capture the feel of the original album cut by the Kingston Trio and was presented in response to a request from the audience by a young lady who was born much too late to remember the original but who was much too fetching to ignore.
Bass accompaniment and additional vocals by Rick Jarusiewisc.