And as long as we're talking about Sandburg and folk music, I think we should point out that he often seems to have represented folk music pretty faithfully in _Songbag_, e.g. in the song with "them blues" that pianist Henry Parks had heard while living in the Deep South in about 1916. It's a very valuable book from a pure folk-interest standpoint, especially if you've been interested in folk music long enough that you can identify the nuggets.

Sandburg acknowledges in the "Lonesome Road" entry how by the time he heard something it might have been dressed up in fancy clothes. My understanding is that he could hear the big difference between "Wanderin'" as he encountered it and "Boll Weevil," with regard to folkishness, much the same way you and I can. Even though he liked to get cutesy in much of his writing afterwards (sometimes very cutesy), I think he was pretty deep into his hobby music research.