There is something that haunts me every time I hear Sam Cooke’s Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha. In the song, the narrator is waiting for a dance that his partner can do. She cannot cha cha. But every song they play is the cha cha cha. Including Tom Dooley cha cha. Being extremely familiar with the folk ballad Tom Dooley, I am immediately set to ruminating what a Tom Dooley cha cha would sound like. The rhythms, the melody, everything seems as though it would not fit. And I wonder aloud that someone needs to make a Tom Dooley cha cha.

Well, someone did make a Tom Dooley cha cha! Apparently the Kingston Trio hit, Tom Dooley, inspired a number of response songs from various artists in various styles. The 1959 Thomas Dooley cha cha by the George Garabedian Troubadours was just one novelty song among many novelty and non-novelty songs. But then I had to know, was the Thomas Dooley cha cha playing at the party that inspired Sam Cooke to write his song? Or was George Garabedian, like me, inspired by the song to comment: what would a Tom Dooley cha cha be like? Before answering his own question.

Well, I couldn’t find a firm date for the George Garabedian 1959 release, but Sam Cooke’s “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha” was released in January 1959 after being recorded on January 7, 1959. So, it seems a fair bet that George’s cha cha came after. Mystery solved!

The original song that the Kingston Trio remade, and made famous, was written not long after Tom Dula was tried for a murder committed in 1866. Ages ago I went looking into the background on the song Tom Dooley. I found the story very well documented on Wikipedia and “A bit of justice for Anne” Wilkes Journal Patriot, so I ended up inspired to write some short fiction instead.