"I'm still having a problem with the cheerful nature of the music itself...." Gus Cannon and Emmet Kennedy both recalled that, in different regions, they encountered variants of "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home" before 1906. That's not cheerful stuff, and it's from before Maggio heard a black guitarist perform a number the guitarist called "I Got The Blues," which Maggio then adapted as a strain in one of his own pieces.

Maggio, leader of a band, heard a blues and incorporated it into a dance piece. In general dance pieces interested Maggio more than blues did. Ragtime was seen as something that sold huge as of 1908 -- and the same was still true in 1911 and 1914 when Chris Smith and W.C. Handy issued their blues "Monkey Rag" and "Yellow Dog Rag" under those titles.

Most black folk music of 1900-1909 was not blues music. Read Charles Peabody, the Thomas brothers, Howard Odum, Anne Hobson, E.C. Perrow, etc. to see that. "Skillet Good And Greasy" wasn't a blues, "John Henry" wasn't a blues, "This Morning This Evening So Soon" wasn't a blues, "You Shall" wasn't a blues, "Lost John" wasn't a blues, etc. etc.