Correct Eric. I haven't heard Paul Robeson's version but I can't imagine anyone singing it better than Dylan.

Jim, re Dylan's early use of trad songs, here's another one! From Dave Van Ronk's "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" -

"Bob Dylan heard me fooling around with one of my [Irish]grandmother's favourites, 'The Chimes of Trinity', a sentimental ballad about Trinity Church that went something like,

Tolling for the outcast, tolling for the gay,
Tolling for the [something, something] long passed away,
As we whiled away the hours down on old Broadway,
As we listened to the chimes of Trinity".

I don't want to go over old ground either but I want to say that I think tho Dylan may have used an occasional trad hook to get him started, he made his songs distinctively his own, as did Dominic Behan!