Ruth's rendition of "At Sundown", which was the flip side of this record, was a fairly sizeable hit and has been reissued on CD since then. This side, recorded in Chicago on June 23 of 1927, has not been reissued yet. The song was written by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn (the same pair that co-wrote
"Carolina In The Morning") along with bandleader Willie Creager (co-author of "Letting My Chances Go By"). This is a simple rendition, just Ruth's unadorned voice and a piano, and because "Less Is More" it comes across very effectively. Her style was an effective counterpoint to the blues which had
dominated female singing through the early 20s - she was simple and sweet as opposed to loud and bawdy like many of the others - and songs like this brought that out very well. The surface of this disc wasn't badly scratched, but it had been played a few times so some crackle needed to be filtered out -
it is much improved after some careful noise reduction.
