I wouldn’t be surprised if R. Crumb had dealings with the recently deceased Joe Bussard. Crumb’s collection of vintage 78 rpm records is large, but the collection Bussard has left behind is enormous.
The Washington Post spent time with Bussard not long before he went into hospice care: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/05/joe-bussard-record-collector-78s/
Bussard cites “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” by Blind Willie Johnson as “one of the greatest sides ever cut,” but the article neglects to mention that two copies of it are traveling through interstellar space.
An interview with Bussard from ten years ago: https://dustandgrooves.com/joe-bussard-frederick-ma/
Moving up the music timeline into the 40’s and 50’s, I’ll take this opportunity to mention Jim Dawson’s updated and revised edition of his book, What Was the First Rock ‘N’ Roll Record? After Jim saw copies of the original edition going for $75 and up on eBay, he thought he’d better put an end to that. The Kindle edition of the all-text book is only five bucks.
I’ll give it a listen.
One of my favorite Compilation albums is “Dark Was the Night: A Red Hot Compilation.” It does have a cover of this tune on it, but I discovered it when tracking down the origin of a Decemberists “rarity” — Sleepless. A beautiful track that is on that album.
I have one of those replica discs also, from Kickstarter (or some other crowdfunding platform; I forget which). Very cool package.