Poor Boy You're Bound To Die

Tom Dula was a handsome young man and a fine fiddler by all accounts. What is it, then, that would cause him to kill young Laura Foster?

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In 1866, Laura Foster's body was found in a shallow grave. She had been stabbed in the heart.

Tom had gone off to fight as a confederate in the Civil War and when he returned his courtship with Foster began. However, before he went off to war, he had been involved with Annie Melton.

However, the "Eternal triangle" mentioned in the song actually had a fourth side.

Sheriff Grayson, the man who would arrest Tom Dula as well as drive the horses from beneath him when he was hanged in 1868, had a crush on Annie Melton, and would later marry her.

While Tom Dula paid the ultimate price for the murder, Annie Melton was also tried for the murder and acquitted.

Thus the killer was apprehended and justly executed, or so it would seem until near the end of Annie Melton's life.

Legend contends that while Annie Melton lay on her death bed, she admitted to her husband, Sheriff Grayson, and other women in the town, that she was the one who had killed Laura Foster out of jealousy and convinced Tom Dula to bury the body.

This would at least make Tom Dula an accomplice to the murder and he may not have hanged. He never said a word to implicate Melton in his trials, and she allowed him to hang without saying a word on his behalf.

"Tom Dula" was first sung by Frank Proffitt to Frank Warner who recorded it for Elektra records and was reproduced by Alan Lomax in 1947. In 1958, the song was recorded by The Kingston Trio and it topped the charts and is accepted as the one song which started the folk music boom of the late 50s and early 60s.

"The Legendary" Eddy Arnold recorded this version in 1959. Arnold, known as the "Ambassador of Country Music" and "The Tennessee Plowboy," has sold over 85 million records in his 55 year career.