Well Bill, he's definitely channeling a different style here, and the references to Jimmie Rodgers seems pretty apt. It's worth pointing out that, unlike Rembrandt's childhood scrawls, this album has a very different context. It was recorded by Kenneth Goldstein, who I think it's fair to say, given his history and impact on the folk movement, probably had some good reason to recognize in Bruce something worth recording. It's interesting, too that he's a songwriter ahead of the singer-songwriter movement, tapping into a different tradition than many of his contemporaries.

I don't think this album is particularly disconnected from his later work at all. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that his "later self" is a "journalistic convenience" he developed, to use one of his own phrases. Remember, 1961 is also the year that Rosalie Sorrels released Rosalie's Songbag, which contains her version of Rock, Salt and Nails, written around the same time and still his most famous song. She recorded several of the songs from this album, and "Sing in the Spring" was covered by quite a few others as well, including the Limeliters (as "If I Had a Mule").

If anything, in the research I've done and the folklore project that Polly Stewart did, it shows that Bruce's style was born in Utah, long before he came east. His early songs were quickly recorded and shared by others, and though he probably didn't earn much in royalties, they seem to be popular right out of the gate. Even the story/song mode that became his signature style came out of this time, present in a series of productions that he worked on with Rosalie Sorrels, Polly Stewart, and others, shows that were combinations of stories and songs glued together with personality and a bit of theater flair.