Here is the entry from Fiddler's Companion site:

SAIL AWAY LADIES [1A]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Kentucky, Tennessee. G Major. Standard. ABB (Brody, Ford): AABB (Spandaro): AABBCC (Phillips). The tune is related to the numerous versions of "Sally Ann" played in the keys of A and G Major. According to Guthrie Meade (1980), the tune is identified with the south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee locals. The title also appears in a list of the standard tunes in the square dance fiddler's repertoire, according to A.B. Moore in his 1934 book "History of Alabama." Southern Kentucky fiddler Henry L. Bandy recorded the tune for Gennett in 1928, though it was unissued, however, the earlest recordings were Uncle Bunt Stevens (1926-without words) and Uncle Dave Macon (1927-with words). Paul Wells (Middle Tennessee State University) states that the song was collected around the turn of the 20th century and seems to have been common to both black and white traditions. Tom Paley (former New Lost City Ramblers member) believes the verses of "Sail Away Ladies" to be typical floating verses, and go:
***
If ever I get my new house done,
(I'll) give my old one to my son.
***
Children, don't you grieve and cry.
You'll be angels, bye and bye.
***
Come along, girls, and go with me.
We'll go back to Tennessee.
***
(I) got the news from Shallow (or "Charlotte") Town.
Big St. Louis is a-burning down.
***
I chew my tobacco and I spit my juice.
I love my own daughter but it ain't no use.
(Paul Mitchell and others believe the words in Macon's last line sometimes heard as own daughter is really Dona, pronounced Dough-nee in the American South, a Spanish/Italian word for a mature love object, a woman.).
***
Another version of this last couplet goes:
***
I chew my tobacker and I swaller my juice
Sail away, ladies, sail away.
I'd like to go to Heaven, but it ain't no use.
Sail away, ladies, sail away.
***
African-American collector Thomas Talley, writing in his book Negro Folk Rhymes (reprinted in 1991, edited by Charles Wolfe), printed a similar but different text:
***
Sail away, ladies! Sail away!
Sail away, ladies! Sail away!
Nev' min' what dem white folks say,
May de Mighty bless you. Sail away!
***
Nev' min' what you daddy say,
Shake yo liddle foot an' fly away,
Nev' min' if yo' mammy say:
"De Devil'll git you." Sail away!
***
Kentucky fiddler H.L. Bandy sang the following lyric to "Sail Away Ladies", usually associated with the tune "Old Miss Sally":
***
I asked that girl to be my beau
She hacked at me with a garden hoe
***
I asked that girl to be my wife,
She took at me with a butcher knife
***
Uncle Dave Macon also included a chorus which went, "Don't she rock, Die-Dee-Oh?" but Paley notes that other old recordings have variants like "Don't she rock, Darneo?" and even "Don't she rock 'em, Daddy-O?" (which seems to harken to the beatnik era). Some unknown "revival" wag re-interpreted Macon's lines as:
***
Don't sheetrock the patio (x3)
Sail away, ladies, sail away
***
Wolfe (1991) finds the song in several older collections: Brown (1:153), Brewer (165) and a 1903 collection by William W. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children (170). It also appears in a modern collection of African-American songs and games, Jones and Hawes's Step It Down (174, as "Horse and Buggy"). Sources for notated versions: Highwoods String Band (N.Y.) [Brody]: Uncle Bunt Stevens (Tenn.) [Phillips, Spandaro]. See Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology, #1, 1968; Linda Burman - "The Technique of Variation in an American Fiddle Tune (Sail Away Lady)." Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 241. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 35. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 207. Spandaro (10 Cents a Dance), 1980; pg. 32. Columbia 15071-D (78 RPM), "Uncle Bunt Stevens" (Tenn.) {1926}. County 521, "Uncle Dave Macon: Original Recordings 1925-1935." Folkways FA 2395, New Lost City Ramblers- "Vol. 5." Folkways FA-2951, Uncle Bunt Stevens - "Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 2, Social Music" (1952). Gennet Records, Master #14361, Henry L. Bandy (1928. Not released). Kicking Mule 213, Susan Cahill- "Southern Clawhammer Banjo." Morning Star 45004, H.L. Bandy (southern Ky.) - "Wish I Had My Time Again." Rounder 0074, Highwoods String Band- "No. 3 Special" (1976. Learned from Uncle Dave Macon's recording). Rounder 0193, Rodney Miller - "Airplang" (1985). Vocalation 5155 (78 RPM), Uncle Dave Macon (1927).
T:Sail Away Ladies
L:1/8
M:4/4
K:G
g2ga g2d2 | e3d e4 | g2g2 edB2 | d6 d2 | e2ed B2G2 | A3G G4 | B2BE D2E2 | G3G G4 :|
|: B2BG A2G2 | B3A G4 | B2GE D2E2 | G3G G4 :|

SAIL AWAY LADIES [1B]. Old-Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown. USA. G Major. Standard. AAB (Phillips): AABB (Brody). See also the related tune "Sally Ann." Source for notated version: Kenny Baker [Brody, Phillips]. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 242. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 207. County 730, Kenny Baker- "Baker's Dozen." County 705, Otis Burris- "Virginia Breakdown" (Brody's version '1C').

SAIL AWAY LADIES [1C]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Oklahoma. G Major. Standard. AAB. Source for notated version: W.S. Collins (Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma) [Thede]. Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 95.

SAIL AWAY LADIES [2]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Kentucky. G Major. Standard. AABB. Little relation to "Sail Away Ladies" [1], the tune that usually goes by this title. Some have suggested that the tune may be related to Ed Haley's "Indian Ate a/the Woodchuck," but others do not hear the resemblance. Source for notated version: J.P. Fraley (Rush, Ky.), learned from his father, Richard Fraley, also a fiddler, who called the tune by the "Sail Away" title. According to Betty Vornbrock, Fraley remembers hearing Arthur Smith's version ("Sail Away Ladies" [1]) on the radio long after he learned his father's version [Brody, Phillips]. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 242. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 207. Rounder 0037, J.P. and Annadeene Fraley- "Wild Rose of the Mountain."

SAIL AWAY LADIES [3]. AKA and see "Chinquapin." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Round Peak, North Carolina. E Minor/G Major. Standard. AA'B. This melody, almost entirely played over an E minor chord (with a G major cadence in the 'B' part) is unrelated to the "Sally Ann" tune family, unlike so many other tunes with the title "Sail Away Ladies." The source for the tune, Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell, learned this single tune from Round Peak fiddler Preston 'Pet'/'Pat' McKinney, whom he chanced to meet in the road when Jarrell was age sixteen and on his way to a dance with his fiddle. McKinney, on his way to get some whiskey, hailed him and noting the instrument said "They say you fiddle, son." Jarrell handed him the fiddle which was in ADAE tuning (the 'normal' tuning for Jarrell) and McKinney re-tuned it to standard tuning and played "Sail Away Ladies." Jarrell asked him the title and to play it again, and by the end had it fixed in his mind (see Peter Anick, "An Afternoon with Tommy Jarrell, 1982," Fiddler Magazine, Spring 1995, and notes on the tune appearing with Jarrell's recording on County 756). Source for notated version: Tommy Jarrell (Mt. Airy, N.C.) [Phillips]. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), 1994; pg. 207. County 756, Tommy Jarrell- "Sail Away Ladies" (1976). Heritage V, Roscoe Parish (Galax, Va., under the title "Chinquapin"). In the repertoire of Luther Davis, Galax, Va.

Meade's earliest printed citation in respect of this piece is to W.C. Handy's 'A Treasury of Blues' NYC, Simon & schuster Inc 1926, p44. His first recorded reference is to Uncle Dave Macon and Sid Harkreader's recording of 'Girl I Left Behing Me' Vocalion 15034, 1925. I can't understand this - it seems to bear no relationship to 'Sail Away Ladies'. His second recorded version is Uncle Bunt Stephens on 29 March 1926, issued as Columbia 15071-D in July 1926. Uncle Dave recorded it with his Fruit Jar Drinkers on 7 May 1927, issued as Vocalion 5155 in May 1928.

The paragraph on Uncle Bunt's version by the late Charles Wolfe in his 'A Good Riot: The Birth of the Grand Old Opry' at pp95-96 is also of interest:

Next to Texas fiddler Eck Robertson's classic solos of 'Leather Britches' and 'Sallie Gooden' dating from 1922 and 1923, Bunt Stephen's efforts are probably the finest examples of traditional American solo fiddling recorded. Students of fiddle music have described Uncle Bunt's masterpiece 'Sail Away Ladies' as probably similar to much American dance music in the period between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and ethnomusicologist Linda C. Burman-Hall, in a well-known study entitled 'The Technique of Variation in an American Fiddle Tune', spends over twenty pages transcribing and analysing the complex musical patterns of the piece. Uncle Bunt, whose neighbours described as 'that nice little feller that never amounted to much', would have been quietly amused.

Henry Bandy, cited in the first paragraph of the Fiddler's Companion entry above, was born in 1876 and was taught 'Sail Away Ladies' by his father who was a farmer and blacksmith. Bandy was a direct link to nineteenth century display fiddlers and was much more important to the Grand Ole Opry that his slender recorded legacy suggests. [Info from Wolfe].

--Stewie.