Hi Q,

Deciding if a Carter song is ultimately from an African-American source is difficult. We can surmise whether they learned the song from african-Americans at the time tehy learned the song.

Many songs came originally from white sources and were adopted and changed by blacks.

A.P. Carter was riding around collecting songs with a black man, Leslie Riddle in the rural south, not a common practice in 1920s. The songs A.P. got from Riddle, Pauline Gray, Brownie McGee, John Henry and Steve Tarter were from Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Davis and many others that the Carters never knew.

It's important to note that both the Carters and Jimmie Rodgers arguably the two most popular early Country music stars both relied heavily on African-American music for their success.