John, a variant was sung by John Lomax, Jr., on his Folkways "American Folksongs" (1956).

John Henry said to the white man,
"Looky yonder what I see,
Oh, your drill's done broke and your hole's done choke,
And you can't drive steel like me, O Lordy!
Can't drive steel like me!"

Lomax calls his text a composite, but he also says he assisted his father when he was collecting inside the Arkansas prison-farm system in 1934.

Lead Belly was their chauffeur. So there's no telling whether this variant is derivative or independent.