I just came across something Dan Hardie, who runs the Buddy Bolden Revival Band, wrote me in 2002. Having read quite a lot about the early New Orleans musicians in Bolden's circle, he suggested that Bolden's two big "blues" tunes were "Funky Butt" (which was a comedy insult song) and "Make Me A Pallet On The Floor" (which was a song about getting laid). This just illustrates the issue that some people have defined "blues" more broadly than others (Alan Lomax being about as far out there as anybody when he included the "Crawdad Song" family).

Another interesting thing Hardie said: "One oral report suggested that diminished chords were not much used before the [New Orleans] musicians went on the riverboats around World War 1...." In my mind this ties in with the fact that if you research who the very earliest-born New Orleans ragtime-related guitarists are in e.g. _New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album_ by Rose and Souchon (e.g. Willie Santiago), their fairly simple approach to chords on record seems to have been quite similar to the folk guitarists.

For anyone who's interested, here is the Buddy Bolden Revival Band playing "Make Me A Pallet On The Floor," a happy song with bent notes in it, a combination that 1890s music was apparently full of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1NtCome1A