"Jim, Leslie Shepherd's lengthy piece you quote skirts around the question of origin on individual songs."
Possibly because he, like the rest of us, didn't know the origins of the songs and was not prepared to speculate.
Laws appeared to take a similar stance, as did all the writers on the subject that I have ever come across.
This is the bit in Shepherd's piece that rings the truest to me:
"It is possible that old ballads and country songs were eventually printed on broadsides because they did not involve a fee to a ballad writer."
Doesn't beat around the bush there - "put not your trust in businessmen" - always worked for me.
Bronson went as far as to repeat the suggestion that Barbara Allen, which he regarded as s country song, was introduced into the city by Mrs Knipp singing it on stage.
But there again, until we have some fresh information everything is speculation really!
Jim Carroll