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the essential post:

The short answer to Ed Lyrics’ original question:

> Is it known when Paul Clayton discovered (published?) this song. and did it come with a tune? I’m curious how long it took for Dylan to then write his own version.

Clayton’s song seems to be an amalgamation of two songs (tune and lyrics), whilst the Dylan use of the song is interesting… 

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Now for the longer answer…. 

From ‘Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival’ by Bob Coltman.

First – how Clayton wrote the song, “Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons”:

‘By 1962, though, dog eat dog was becoming the new mood as folksingers vied for popularity. Gina Glaser, who had come up during the earlier, kinder era, saw the new trend developing even before she left for England. She speaks of “the competition, the backbiting, the nastiness. It was horrible.” Though not everyone saw it coming, events in that whirl would doom real folksong. The singers rising to the top of the seething heap would be those who featured not traditional numbers but originals, preferably of their own writing.

‘Paul saw that this new direction would be a key to staying in the game. “Gotta Travel On” had shown the way; now he had a new folk-based lyric, “Who’ll Buy You Ribbons (When I’m Gone).” It soon found modest popularity. He had put together this one, too, from folk sources. Stephen Wilson says he had “taken two different ideas. I know this from Clayton’s own lips. He slightly changed to tune to ‘Call Me Old Black Dog.’ The words were a song he picked up a sheet copy of in the University of Virginia library, called ‘Who’s Gonna Buy You Chickens When I’m Gone.’ He liked the idea of it.”

‘Paul brought the song into the mainstream by junking the chickens and substituting ribbons. His song, as copyrighted, was simple, brief and hooky in the music industry sense. 

…

‘If some of these lines remind you of a later folk rock hit, that’s no accident as we shall see.

‘”Who’ll Buy You Ribbons” is erroneously said to be based on a song from the early folk craze “Scarlet Ribbons (for Her Hair),” which had worn out turntables by the thousands in Harry Belafonte’s rendition. But it shares neither tune nor lyric with the Belafonte hit, only the ribbon theme and that was scarcely new; witness the perennial favorite “Oh, Dear, What Can The Matter Be?”…

…’John Jacob Niles, too, had a ribbon song: “If I Had Ribbon Bow.” At best the “Scarlet Ribbons” suggestion is a red herring.

‘Paul also claimed he found “Who’s Gonna Buy You Chickens” on an Appalachian collecting trip. Evidence suggests he got the song from Marybird McAllister, though it does not appear on the Library of Congress’s title list of some 150 of her songs he taped between 1958 and 1961. On balance Wilson’s account is as close to definitive as we’re likely to get.’

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In terms of the Dylan appropriation and ‘Don’t Think Twice’, that all seemed to have happened around 1962.

‘Barry Kornfeld recalled how one [song] became the other: “I was with Paul one day, and Dylan wanders by and says, ‘Hey, man, that’s a great song. I’m gonna use that song.’ And he wrote a far better song, a more interesting song — ‘Don’t Think Twice.”

‘Paul’s best friend, Stephen Wilson, asserts of “Ribbons,” “Cute song, it had a very nice change, nice feeling in it. Paul said he went to see Dylan in New York and Dylan picked up the guitar and said, ‘Hey, Paul, I rewrote your song, what do you think about this?'” and played Paul “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” At first Paul was enthusiastic about “Twice.” But then Peter Paul and Mary turned it into a huge hit. For Paul, scratching for gigs to pay the rent and survive, it looked like the big fish that got away. Wilson recalls, “Royaltywise, it would have been a big producer if you owned half of it, and to a person who was dying of no money, half of the twenty or thirty or forty grand would have been a huge [windfall]”

‘Paul needed it badly – he would be dirt poor the rest of his life.’

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Coltman, Bob. Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2008, 9780810861329: 132-133, 146-147.

Link to a nice article in the Boston Globe (12/19/13) that provides a short overview of Clayton’s career/life.  Discuss the Clayton connection with this song and Baby Blue.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/12/19/new-bedford-folk-hero-paul-clayton-colors-inside-llewyn-davis/ngl8FfziaiKeahUS1mHDoM/story.html

article is saved here for safe-keeping.

Clayton article from Boston Globe