Why be disillusioned? The man was doubtless a creative genius (and probably could have made the U. S. Olympic team in ceiling-spitting, too!). I'm told that Schirmers wanted "authentic" folk material for the small publication they did of his early collectanea, so he included a few things of his own and called them "traditional," using such fanciful head notes as "collected from an old yarb doctor in West Bucksnort, Tennessee", or words to that effect. Hence, Susan Reed learned "Lass From the Low Countrie," assumed it was traditional (I don't know how it could have fooled her!) and recorded it. I've been told that Niles later attempted to sue for royalties, but failed, since he, himself, had listed the song as traditional. The lawsuit story may be an apocryphal yarn, but, what the hell, so was his description of the background of the song. The man should have taken credit, proudly, for his original stuff and let it go at that. I only wish that a few of our present "omphaloscopists" could write such songs as he!

Sandy