The name "Rega" on this Okeh record was actually short for Milo Rega, a pseudonym for Fred W. Hager who was serving as Okeh's musical director around this time ("Rega" is the last four letters of Hager's last name reversed;
more info can be found on the Wikipedia entry for Okeh records). The band made several records, some of them quite lively (check out
"The Vamp", or "Oh Sister Ain't That Hot", both on "YouTube") and
some of them relatively mild like this one. Borrowing liberally from the spirit of Paul Whiteman's "Whispering," this tune was geared to be popular with social dancers who found in Whiteman's record the perfect dance tempo.
Recorded on November 5 of 1920, using the bass-rich waxing methods that Okeh had at their disposal, this comes across quite well for an acoustic disc. The vocalist sounds like Lewis James, later a member of the Revelers, but
there is no credit on the label so there is no way to be sure (email on this subject is welcome as always). The disc only showed signs of wear in the first few grooves, and after that the side played smoothly. Light noise
reduction was used to take the edge off of the groove noise.
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