Bob,

In The Coffee House Songbook (Oak Publications, 1966), Jay Edwards and Robert Kelley credit two sources for the song: you and Bill Briggs jointly, and someone whom they call "Stoney?" with a question mark. They collected the song from you and Briggs in the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming in the summer of either 1959 or 1960. They also collected the song from "Stoney?" in New Orleans some time between 1963 and 1965.

Can you shed any light on this? Stoney obviously learned the song later from one source or another, but did you teach it to Bill Briggs? Did the two of you perform it together for Edwards and Kelley? Do you even remember Edwards and Kelley?

My questions are not purely academic. You may be able to establish your copyright to the arrangement even at this late date, since there is independent documentation through Edwards and Kelley. Irwin Silber may still have their manuscript, as he was the owner of Oak Publications. If you wish to contact him, his e-mail address is: isilber@jong.com

Best of luck.

--- Steve Suffet