Tom Winslow

Tom Winslow
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Griffin Winslow
Also known as	Thomas Winslow, "Brother" Tom Winslow
Born	November 13, 1940
Died	October 23, 2010
Genres	Blues, folk, African American music
Instruments	Guitar, banjo
Years active	1960–2010
Labels	Biograph Records
Associated acts	Thomasina Winslow, The Winslows, Rev. Gary Davis, Peter Seeger, Al Polito, Guy Davis

Thomas Griffin "Tom" Winslow (November 13, 1940, Hobgood, North Carolina – October 23, 2010, Albany, New York) was a prominent American folk singer and writer, best known as a "disciple" of Reverend Gary Davis and a former member of Pete Seeger's band. He performed with his family as The Winslows and recorded with Al Polito. His career as a performing artist lasted over forty years. He was most notable as the composer of "Hey Looka Yonder (It's The Clear Water)", a folk song that has been the anthem of the Sloop Clearwater.

While he toured throughout the United States, he continued to perform in Upstate New York until shortly before his death at the age of 70. His children are the performing artists Thomasina Winslow and Gary Winslow.

As a teenager, Winslow learned to play guitar from his grandfather, Thomas Winslow. He was a band member of the Reverend Gary Davis, a country-folk musician from the first half of the 20th century. He toured throughout the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, sometimes as a solo act, as well as with his family act, The Winslows. In the 1960s, he worked at Vassar College in the equestrian program, and off-season, as a construction worker at Albany, New York's Empire State Plaza.

Winslow's great enduring fame comes from penning and performing the now-classic ballad, "Hey Looka Yonder", which is known also as "It's the Clearwater" and "It's the Clear Water". This song, recorded by Biograph Records in 1969, is about the fundraising for the sloop Clearwater, and in particular how "black and white" got together to create a floating environmental education school. Its mission was to clean up the water of then-polluted Hudson River.

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