Among the first dozen songs I learned. As I recall, I first heard it coming out of juke boxes in the very early 1950s, sung by The Weavers. I learned the words from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag. (Or is that Sandbag's Songburg?)

One evening in 1959, while singing at "The Place Next Door" (next door to the Guild 45th Theater and owned by the same man, hence the name of the coffeehouse), this guy requests "The Sloop John B." So I sang it. After I finished the set, he grumped that I hadn't sung it right. "What do you mean?" I asked him. "You didn't sing it like the Kingston Trio!" he beefed.

Hell's bells! I'd been singing the song since before the King Kong Trio even met!!

Don Firth