[78-L] Precursor of 12-bar "Railroad Bill" in Canada 1860s

[Joe Scott]

Early blues songs grew largely out of earlier 12-bar songs without the word blues in them along the lines of Will Slayden's "Joe Turner" and Will Bennett's "Railroad Bill" (and, despite the title on the record, Robert Wilkins' "Alabama Blues"). "Railroad Bill," in some versions at least, concerns a historical man who was shot and killed in Alabama in the 1890s. That ballad sometimes include a line about how he never worked and he never will. Various songs about "Bill"s who never worked and never will (without "Railroad") have been collected in England and the U.S. and predate the 1890s in the U.S., including among black singers.
But IIRC the only variant of those I've seen that doesn't appear to be 8-bar or 16-bar AFAWK is one mentioned in the book _Barkerville And The Cariboo Goldfields_ by Richard Wright: a gold miner in British Columbia in the 1860s was nicknamed "English Bill" because he was always singing this:
"I'm English Bill, English Bill
Never worked and I never will
Get away girls or I'll tousle your curls."
Although 12-bar wasn't particularly common before the 1890s in the U.S. as far as we can document, it may have been pretty common, and it does appear in at least one slave spiritual and in some British-influenced ballads, including ones collected way North. "Goodbye Old Paint" was partly 12-bar AAB as Jess Morris knew it; he said he learned it from the black singer Charley Morris in the 1880s or 1890s:
http://www.davefredrickson.net/farewell_fair_ladies.htm 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyhbVO8cQI 
Not all that unlike "Pretty Polly" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfyrRNP1ZpU 
Joseph Scott