Before Gershwin wrote the perfect negro lullaby ("Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess"), there were many songs in circulation including the classic "Kentucky Babe" that painted the same scene. This is one of the more obscure
ones, written in the 1890s ny J.C. Macy (who also adapted the lyrics for the "Eton Boating Song") and George Gage (wrote the children's song "All Aboard for Sleepy Land"), and recorded by this anonymous group for Edison Labs
on July 18 of 1923. I don't know who was in this quartet but they deliver the song sweetly, as it should be, and the harmonies are quite good though hardly revolutionary - this was a nostalgic exercise more than anything.
The surface of the record was nearly perfect, and only needed to have rumble attenuated.
