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Hi @36ftv just catching up & I have notes re: Sugaree and whether it's a cover. Despite all the great indy rock guitarists, I enjoy calling Elizabeth Cotten the best Chapel Hill ever produced, and it's her song "Shake Sugaree" in question.
It's a weak claim, the chords, melody, groove, & story are all different. Cotten's chorus goes, "Oh lordy me/didn't I shake sugaree", an old timey practice of spreading sugar on the floor before a dance, and when everyone stomps the sugar bounces & makes a percussion sound.
Late in life, Cotten's people got in touch with Jerry & hit him with claims. In non-confrontational Jerry fashion, he convinces them the record company is a pain to deal with to change the royalties, but he'll record another song - Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie - and give her all the $
It greatly helped the last 20+ years of her life, and local apocryphal stories say that she loved modern appliances and when people would ask where she got such-and-such, she'd say "oh, some dead people in San Francisco take care of me"
And of course Cotten loved the shit out of a dishwasher, she served racist white Chapel Hill families for 50 years. Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie is quietly savage
