"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 was selected as one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc.

In the documentary Appalachian Journey(1991), folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the "original source" for the song. Since the song predates Frank Proffitt's early version, it appears that Lomax means that Proffitt's version is the one that has become most well known to us because the Kingston Trio derived their interpretation from it. Certainly, there is at least one earlier known recording, by Grayson and Whitter made in 1929, approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording.

Impoverished Confederate veteran Tom Dula (Dooley), Laura Foster's lover and probable fiancé, was convicted of her murder and hanged in 1868. Foster was stabbed to death with a large knife; the brutality of the attack partly accounted for the widespread publicity the murder and subsequent trial received.

Dula had a second lover, Anne Melton. It was her comments that led to the discovery of Foster's body, but Melton was acquitted in a separate trial based on Dula's word. Dula's enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her. Melton, who had once expressed jealousy of Dula's purported plans to marry Foster, died insane a few years after the homicide. Thanks to the efforts of newspapers such as The New York Times, and to the fact that former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance represented Dula pro bono, Dula's murder trial and hanging were given widespread national publicity. A local poet, Thomas C. Land, wrote a popular song about Dula's tragedy after the hanging.

A man named "Grayson," mentioned in the song as pivotal in Dula's downfall, has sometimes been characterized as a romantic rival of Dula's or a vengeful sheriff who captured him and presided over his hanging. Some variant lyrics of the song portray Grayson in that light, and the spoken introduction to the Kingston Trio version did the same. Col. James Grayson was actually a Tennessee politician who had hired Dula on his farm when the young man fled North Carolina under suspicion and was using a false name. Grayson did help North Carolinians capture Dula and was involved in returning him to North Carolina, but otherwise played no role in the case.

Dula was tried in Statesville, because it was believed he could not get a fair trial in Wilkes County. He was given a new trial on appeal but he was again convicted, and hanged on May 1, 1868. His alleged accomplice, Jack Keaton, was set free. On the gallows, Dula reportedly stated, "Gentlemen, do you see this hand? I didn't harm a hair on the girl's head."

Dula's last name was pronounced "Dooley," leading to some confusion in spelling over the years. (The pronunciation of a final "a" like "y" is an old feature in Appalachian speech, as in the term "Grand Ole Opry"). The confusion was probably compounded by the fact that Dr. Tom Dooley, an American physician known for international humanitarian work, was at the height of his fame in 1958, when the Kingston Trio version became a major hit.

The doleful ballad was probably first sung shortly after the execution and is still commonly sung in North Carolina.

Several notable recordings have been made:

Tom Dooleyprompted a number of parodies, either as part of other songs (Ella Fitzgerald drops an altered line from the song into a recording of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) or as entire songs, including one called Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley, Your Tie's Caught In Your Zipperby the Incredible Bongo Band in 1972.

The song and legend were parodied by a one-record novelty act called Waldo, Dudley and Dora on a 45 rpm Grayson Goofed, issued as Awful Records release #PU-1. Verses sung to the Tom Dooley melody alternate with mini-skits, as "John" Grayson's public reputation erodes from "a fine man" to "a stoolie" (i.e., stool pigeon) to "a gink".

The song was often parodied by the Smothers Brothers as Tom Crudely.

In Episode #705 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Crow T. Robot, motivated by one actor's resemblance to Thomas Dewey, sang a version beginning "Hang down your head, Tom Dewey."

In Ally McBeal (season 5 episode 18) Tom Dooley is the name of the episode in which John Cage sings a version of the song with his Mexican band.

The Kingston Trio hit inspired a quickie feature film, The Legend of Tom Dooley(1959), starring actor Michael Landon, with a cast including Richard Rust. The film was essentially a Western set just after the Civil War. Despite the title, it was not about any traditional Tom Dula legends or about the facts of the actual case, but was a fictional treatment obviously tailored to fit the lyrics of the song.