Fred Hager

In the rock and roll & move era, the “A&R” job description usually implies a schmoozer whose music talents, if any, lie within an instinct for commerce. As the second option skill was of apparent importance to record organization professionals in the ’20s, a few of them, such as for example Fred Hager, also experienced the sort of innovative abilities more regularly connected with performers themselves. While staying behind the moments, Hager was in fact an adept pianist, arranger, and conductor. When he put together a particular group to back again vocalist Mamie Smith in the first ’20s, Hager might not possess realized that he previously just strike one from the park. It’s the opinion of some traditional blues buffs that Hager production started the countdown from what had become referred to as “the Competition record market,” i.e., dark music. Hager and associate Justin Band were both main A&R scouts in the OKeh label through the ’20s, as well as the label would continue to become perhaps one of the most well-known in early blues records. By this time around, Hager could conveniently certainly be a veteran from the music business. His “Irish Fantasia” premiered in the Zonophone label in the past in 1900 and he released the melody “Minerva” six years afterwards. Hager continued composing music through the ’20s, occasionally in cooperation with Band. His original music are the possessive if patriotic “MY VERY OWN Liberty Bell.” Typically, the submitting of Hager’s primary songs was acknowledged to either F. Wallace Rega or Mile Rega, aliases partly concocted from Hager’s personal surname.