My wife was born in 1950 and her grandmother who mainly raised her was a piano and voice teacher in Knoxville and rented space from a local piano store for her classes. My wife remembered one day a woman came in to the store and sat down and began "banging" as her grandmother called it on a piano & writing down words. She said look at her. LOL. The woman playing was Maybelle Carter.
It was sad in a way. My wife's grandmother came from the first family that settled in & founded Sevier County, TN but despite her mountain heritage she did not like Folk nor Bluegrass aka Mountain Music. She taught classical music and voice for Opera mainly. Even her daughter though whom despite lessons could not read a note of music could play good enough to be the church pianist.
Lot's of older & well known musicians from this region can't read music. Like Dolly Parton who has written hundreds of songs including the tunes but can't read music. She didn't get her start from Porter Wagonner either. She got her start as a teenager on a Knoxville TV station being on a variety show ran by a local Politico/Grocer.
With some ‘traditional’ songs, the author will never be known.
Even ‘historians’/’researchers’ like Alan Lomax muddied the waters of history by knowingly falsely assigning authorship to persons such as Leadbelly to give him some steady income.