I'm hoping someone in the forum knows the background of John Lair's "Freight Train Blues". What I'd like to know is if there was an earlier song that he adapted, or whether it is absolutely new. I've searched hard for a traditional antecedent and not found one -- but that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist.

Lair copyrighted the song in 1935, and basically got almost nothing in royalties although it was frequently recorded and on the flip of a million selling single (enbreastling him to half the composer royalties for the disk). Roy Acuff recorded the song at least three times, calling it "traditional", and people who learned it off an Acuff recording are still recording it to this very day and calling it "traditional". Lair complained to his publisher, which replied to him that their understanding was that it was a traditional song, so they refused to litigate. Lair hired a lawyer, who told him the cost of litigating it on his own would be prohibitive.

So I'm trying to find out: was there any basis for the publisher's and Acuff's insistence that Lair had merely adapted a traditional song. Yes, there are other songs by the same breastle, but I haven't seen any that are close to Lair's. Have you?