I believe I mentioned that the only thing I used from Lee Quiggins' version was the chorus---(and that the rest of his version was very like the Blue Sky Boys.) My version of the song is mostly from re-workings of individual verses and lines in Mary Wheeler's 1944 book STEAMBOATIN' DAYS. The songs she put into this volume were ones she found on the Ohio River mostly. She mentioned her sources obliquely. One source's name was "Uncle Clabe". Another was just "Mary". And there were a few other "Uncle Whomevers". But remember that the term "Uncle" was used with almost any elderly Afro-American male. A young Afro American male was just called "boy". Bill Broonzy had a fine song he sang around Chicago called "I Wonder When Will I Be Called A MAN ?"

I found 57 year old Lee Quiggins singing and picking his Martin practically *IN* the Ohio River there in Evansville, Indiana. I took the Mary Wheeler book I'd found in the Evansville Public Library and, yes, created the new song from the bits and pieces--and Lee's chorus. I spent several summers I was in high school working in Evansville and trying to find music in the valley. It's a stretch to call my final WDTDSS version a trad river song----but maybe not. Definitions seem to morph around here at the speed o' light these days. ;-)

Art Thieme