Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", " Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", " Am I Blue?", " Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Early life

Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896 (some sources incorrectly state her birth year as 1900) as a result of the rape of her teenaged African-American mother, Louise Anderson (1881–1962), by 17 year old John Wesley (or Wesley John) Waters (1878–1901), a pianist and family acquaintance from a middle-class African-American background. Waters' family was very fair skinned, his mother in particular. Many sources, including Ethel herself, reported for years that her mother was 12 or 13 years old at the time of the rape, 13 when Ethel was born. Stephen Bourne opens his 2007 biography, ''Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather'', with the statement that genealogical research has shown that Louise Anderson may have been 15 or 16 years old.

Waters played no role in raising his daughter. Soon after she was born, her mother married Norman Howard, a railroad worker, with whom she had a daughter, Juanita Howard, Ethel's half-sister. Ethel used the surname Howard as a child and then reverted to using the surname Waters. She was raised in poverty by Sally Anderson, her grandmother, who worked as a housemaid, and with two of her aunts and an uncle. Waters never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. Of her difficult childhood, she said "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."

Waters grew tall, standing in her teens. According to jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters's birth in the North and her peripatetic (or nomadic) life exposed her to many cultures. Waters first married in 1910 at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, and she soon left the marriage and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She recalled that she earned the rich sum of $10 per week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.

Career

Singing

After her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville circuit, in her words "from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival traveling in freight cars headed for Chicago. She enjoyed her time with the carnival and recalled, "the roustabouts and the concessionaires were the kind of people I'd grown up with, rough, tough, full of larceny towards strangers, but sentimental and loyal to their friends and co-workers." But she did not last long with them and soon headed south to Atlanta, where she worked in the same club as Bessie Smith. Smith demanded that Waters not compete in singing blues opposite her. Waters conceded and sang ballads and popular songs. Around 1919, Waters moved to Harlem and became a performer in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Her first Harlem job was at Edmond's Cellar, a club with a black patronage that specialized in popular ballads. She acted in a blackface comedy, ''Hello 1919''. Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz pointed out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, women blues singers were among the most powerful entertainers in the country. In 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for tiny Cardinal Records. She later joined Black Swan, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she preferred, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass."

She recorded for Black Swan from 1921 through 1923. Her contract with Harry Pace made her the highest paid black recording artist at the time. In early 1924, Paramount bought Black Swan, and she stayed with Paramount through the year.

Around that time, Waters was approached by Maury Greenwald for the London run of '' Plantation Days'', although she later joined the company on its return to Chicago in August 1923, as an "extra added attraction" to "save the fast-flopping revue".

She started working with Pearl Wright, and they toured in the South. In 1924, Waters played at the Plantation Club on Broadway. She also toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters.

She first recorded for Columbia in 1925, achieving a hit with "Dinah".

With Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time" Keith Vaudeville Circuit, a vaudeville circuit performing for white audiences and combined with screenings of silent movies. They received rave reviews in Chicago and earned the unheard-of salary of US$1,250 in 1928. In September 1926, Waters recorded "I'm Coming Virginia", composed by Donald Heywood with lyrics by Will Marion Cook. She is often wrongly attributed as the author. The following year, Waters sang it in a production of ''Africana'' at Broadway's Daly's Sixty-Third Street Theatre. In 1929, Waters and Wright arranged the unreleased Harry Akst

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