Nothing anyone has said explains why this particular recording was so troublesome. I hear nothing in the music or the recording itself that could have posed any special challenge over and above any other tunes Whiteman was waxing. Both his musicians and the Victor staff were the top men in their respective businesses and could cut anything. My guess is: somebody had a bee in his bonnet. There must have been some picayune detail that no casual listener would have heard (or cared about if he did), that assumed epic proportions in the mind of Someone In Charge. I can't imagine what it could have been, but that's the usual way these things happen.
Charlie Chaplin, some film buff has calculated, had a takes-to-print ratio of 53-to-1 when he was making 2-reel shorts for Mutual in 1917. His bonnet was FULL of bees. This is all documented in the BBC series "The Unknown Chaplin." Since Chaplin was a genius, it all paid off artistically. I don't know if the same is true for Whiteman, at least in the case of "My Mammy."