Gordon Lightfoot Forums - Mariposa 2017

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So who did actually write 'Diamond Joe' ?
Gord has said publicly at least once that it was by Rambling Jack Elliott
But several "Lyrics" pages attribute it to Bob Dylan
other sources (including one particular posting by Char on Facebook say it was Tom Rush
as does one cover on YouTube and for another cover there the singer has comprehensively hedged his bets!

https://s9.postimg.org/ah839srlr/Tom_Jack_and_Bob.jpg

But perhaps the last word is as per the heading on
http://www.keeponliving.at/song/diamond_joe.html
is as again posted on Facebook by Char:-

"Diamond Joe (Traditional)
registrated for copyright are Harry Belafonte, Tex Logan, Arthur Wood, Dick Connette, Barry Shane Saunders and John Mellencamp - Bob Dylan, Jack R. Elliott and others as arrangers [GEMA]"
Arizona Place Names by Will Croft Barnes:
http://www.keeponliving.at/images/Diamond%20Joe.jpg
which continues thus for very good measure:-
"John Lomax in Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1938):
"Diamond Joe was a Texas cattleman, the story goes, so rich that he was said to
wear diamonds for his vest buttons. I learned this song years ago," says J. B.
Dillingham, for fifty years a conductor on Houston and Texas Central trains
running out of Austin."