An extended account of the writing of the Bill Clifton "Springhill Disaster" song appears in my book "Paul Clayton and the Folk Revival," published last September (it's available on Amazon).

As part of my research I talked to Bill Clifton, who was a great friend, classmate at UVa, and sometime bandmate of Paul Clayton's. He gave me his own description of the process, which involved meshing his own lyrics and ideas with African-American miner Maurice Ruddick's. There's much more, but here are a couple of details that clear up points raised by Neil Rosenberg's article:

C. Graham "Sonny" Pembroke was a classmate of Clifton's at the UVa business school who sat in on the composing.

So, though the sheet music says "by Maurice Ruddick," the proper (and usual) credit is (though the order of names may not always be the same) "M. Ruddick-B. Clifton-P. Clayton-C. Pembroke."

About the "Dark, black hole in the ground" chorus (which gives the recording that great atmosphere): that was indeed added by Paul Clayton. Paul had a nice touch with imagery, and went on to work as a songwriter on his own.   

Bob