McGrath, if you read the paper I linked there, on page 12 they mention "Italian" tuning, for instruments, not cars, hence why it's not in BS. I guess it's kind of misleading to say it "talks" about the tuning, but it mentions it. My bad, I was in a hurry. I will put the quote here below:

"We played in what they call 'Italian' tuning, you know, where they tune 'em up. It was an altogether different tuning from what I ever done before. Guitar, fiddle, banjer, everything; all the instruments were tuned like that. We all tuned 'em up with the violin.

"And the feller that knowed about it, feller by the name of [John] Sparrow. He knowed how it was tuned up. And my brother had quite a time tuning the banjo with it. Some way or other Sparrow showed him how to do that. And the way we played nearly all of the pieces was in that Italian tuning.

"I used to call it cross-key but they said it wasn't exactly that. But it would sound out all right. That man that recorded those records said that was music like he had never heared. That's what he said."

http://www.1001tunes.com/fiddlers/PopeMtneers.pdf

For examples of "Italian" tuning, he said most of his bands' songs (Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers) were in that style tuning.

Here's a link to the song George Washington the other thread was about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYkEcYi80E

And another song by them. Not sure if the tuning's the same though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67cUXwJNth4