Written by Adam Geibel and Henry Buck, the guys who also wrote "Kentucky Babe," this is another lullaby obstensibly sung by a black mother to her child. It is sung with great precision by the Criterion Quartet consisting of
tenors Horatio Rench and John Young, baritone George Reardon, and Donald Chalmers singing bass. This was recorded for Edison Labs in February of 1916, and was issued on both cylinder and disc with this being the disc version.
The performance is true to the time in which it was recorded, with attitudes and values that would make a pronounced reversal in later decades, so it should be heard with an understanding of what a paying audience expected to
hear in 1916 as opposed to now. The disc had some water damage at the outside edge, needing more noise reduction in the first several seconds than the rest of the record, and after this part passes off the noise reduction is
reduced accordingly.
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