I'm still struggling with "folk song" vs. "traditional song", so the last thing I need is to take on "minstrel" vs. "folk singer." But some people just never learn. I learned some of the songs I know from Mary. She met her husband, a journalist with a degree from Yale at a dance hall, where men could buy a dance for a dime, I think.She was from rural Georgia; he was from New York City. He was educated; she was cultured. Perhaps for folk singers the songs are a part of their culture. Mary Lomax learned her "The Butcher Boy" as part of her upbringing and life; Joan Baez I would guess learned her version of this song (Railroad Boy) from a recording rescued by H. Smith.(Just a guess.) The idea that traditional songs must be from the rural poor is wrong. Surely Nellie Galt's songs belong in the Library of Congress collection, even though she lived in Louisville and certainly wasn't poor. Listen to her "Mulberry Hill" and then listen to "Oliver Cromwell's buried and dead". To my mind the two songs inform each other.