The sound-clip/video referred to above I think shows how the folk process really works. A song written by a millworker / singer from south west Virginia is picked up and recorded in 1927 by an ex railroad worker from Mississippi. The record is one of several by this singer who became very popular even in Europe in the 1930's and was probably heard by the singer on the sound clip when she was a young lady. She obviously liked the song and took it and performed it in her own way. Nowhere near a carbon copy, so different and so enjoyable - to me anyway.
From my scant knowledge of travelers in the the UK I believe that many of them had and maybe still have a taste for old country songs. I seem to remember a BBC TV programme a number of years back when a traveller down in Kent I believe it was sang a take off of another Jimmie Rogers song. I believe he called it "Will there be any Tavellers in Heaven" whereas Jimmie sang "Hoboes in Heaven.

Hoot