I am not sure this addition to the thread got properly posted, so I will do it again.

Thanks for the answers. I think Doc Watson was a red herring. Anyway, it was Mississippi John Hurt that I was looking for.

Here is a related question. In the song is a mention of all the people getting dressed in red (which is interpreted in a later version as all the woman people.) There is another mention to getting dressed in red in a leadbelly song called Po' Howard where he says

Ol' Howard he is dead and gone, pretty little girl with a red dress on.

What is the significance of getting dressed in red?

Murray