Here’s the late great Nat King Cole with a song that showcases his velvety voice and was a huge hit back in the day, its jaunty music balancing its somewhat ominous lyrics. I had not realized until today that the Clifton Clowers mentioned in the song was an actual person who lived on Woolverton Mountain in Arkansas, though the rest of the song is fictional. His nephew wrote the song and decided to immortalize his uncle by using his name.
Mano Singham
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I remember this song (and most of the lyrics).
I hadn’t heard the Nat King Cole version.
I remember the song, but I’m only familiar with The Brothers Four vetsion.
I grew up hearing Claude King’s version, but I did not know Cole covered it. King and Cole both released “Wolverton” in 1962.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLoQS0GnhWk
It turns out there were many versions. Then again, it was common practice decades ago for multiple versions to be released by different groups, sometimes in the same year as with this song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverton_Mountain
Oft times if a black artist recorded a song and had a hit, a white singer would “cover it” (read: leech off the artist’s success) to produce a sanitized version for white America (see: Pat Boone and many others).