Subject: RE: Origins/Meaning: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: GUEST,John Bari - PM
Date: 04 Dec 21 - 01:48 AM

"If the song is not truly from the 1800’s, then it's from the very upstanding H. B. Parks (1928) and/or the not-very-upstanding Lee Hayes (1947)."

What exactly do you mean by "the not-very-upstanding Lee Hayes"? Do you just mean that he possibly was fudging a bit with regard to the sources of the song? I just looked up the entry for Hays in Wikipedia and he would appear to have been an admirable and courageous person in many ways.