I can find no references to connect Niles with any version of Kelly's Love, although he was familiar with more than one version of Careless Love. For instance he writes about the song in a 1932 paper for the Musical Quarterly:

"The singers in the Southern Apalachians have odd rhythms, and they do repeat;but there is very little similarity between what they sing and how they sing it and what the Negro sings and how he sings it. Occaisionally one finds the same verses sung in both. In practically every case it is a song that was originally a white man's song and has been adapted and sung over into the Negro idiom.
    One example is my father's version of "Careless Love":
          When you pass by my door I hang my head and cry,
          When my apron string I bow
          You pass my door and say hello
          Buy when my apron string I pin
          You pass my door and won't come in.

          Don't never trust no railroad man,
          He'll break your heart if he but can,
          He'll take your love and go his way
          Not meaning anything he say.

          Some day my apron string I'll tie
          And then I'll lay right down and die,
          And you won't know 'cause down in Hell
          The Devil's mean, he will not tell.

Some shameless black man turned this lovely antique into a blues in this manner:

          When I wore my apron low,
          When I wore my apron low
          When I wore my apron low
          Boys would pass right by my door.

          Now I wear it to my chin
          Now I wear it to my chin
          Now I wear it to my chin
          Boys all pass and dey won't come in." (p66)



John Jacob Niles
The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1932), pp. 60-75