Sam Lanin was one of the more prolific bandleaders to record in the early 20s, and this side for Okeh in January of 1921 is a good example of his band's workmanship. The song had been a huge hit for Paul Whiteman, who recorded it for Victor (and also claimed
credit for "revising" the song) - the listed songwriters were Ray Egan (co-wrote another huge Whiteman hit, "Japanese Sandman"), Tom Pitts (also wrote a rag called "Meadow Lark"), and Roy Marsh (who co-authored the evergreeen "I Used to Love You But It's All
Over"). The recording, as most anything coming out of Okeh's recording studios at this time, is as warm and natural as acoustic lateral recording ever got - it is a marvel of engineering. The disc was played on some unforgiving equipment once, so the loud
notes are worn, but thankfully it was not played much more than this - the surface was decent despite the "blasting" of the louder notes, and a few gentle filters in spots were all that were necessary to clean it up.
