Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American blues, … Read Full Bio ↴Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.
Her best-known recordings include "Dinah," "Stormy Weather," "Taking a Chance on Love," "Heat Wave," "Supper Time," "Am I Blue?" and "Cabin in the Sky," as well as her version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Waters was the second African American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She is also the first African American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award, in 1962.
Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1896, as a result of the rape of her teenaged mother, Louise Anderson (believed to have been thirteen years old at the time, although some sources indicate she may have been slightly older), by John Waters, a pianist and family acquaintance from a mixed-race middle-class background. Waters played no role in raising Ethel. Ethel Waters was raised in poverty and never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. She said of her difficult childhood, "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
Waters grew tall, standing 5'9½" in her teens. According to women-in-jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters' birth in the North and her peripatetic life exposed her to many cultures.
Waters married at the age of 13, but soon left her abusive husband 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, MD. She later recalled that she earned the rich sum of ten dollars a week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.
After her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville circuit. As she described it later, "I used to work from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival, traveling in freight cars along the carnival circuit and eventually reaching Chicago. Waters 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." She did not last long with them, though, and soon headed south to Atlanta, where she worked in the same club with 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 there became a celebrity performer in the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s.
Waters obtained her first Harlem job at Edmond's Cellar, a club that had a black patronage. She specialized in popular ballads and became an actress in a blackface comedy called Hello 1919. Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz points 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, on the tiny Cardinal Records label. She later joined Black Swan Records, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she would prefer, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass."
She recorded with Black Swan from 1921 through 1923. In early 1924, Paramount bought the Black Swan label, and she stayed with Paramount through that year. Waters first recorded for Columbia Records in 1925, achieving a hit with her voicing of "Dinah", which was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Soon after, she started working with Pearl Wright, and together they toured in the South. In 1924, Waters played at the Plantation Club on Broadway. She also toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters. With Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time" Keith Vaudeville Circuit, a traditional white-audience based vaudeville circuit 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 1929, Waters and Pearl Wright arranged the unreleased Harry Akst song "Am I Blue?," which then appeared in the movie On with the Show and became a hit and her signature tune.
Although she was considered a blues singer during the pre-1925 period, Waters belonged to the vaudeville style of Mamie Smith, Viola McCoy, and Lucille Hegamin. While with Columbia, she introduced many popular standards including "Dinah," "Heebie Jeebies," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Someday, Sweetheart," "Am I Blue?" and "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue" on the popular series, while she continued to sing blues (like "West End Blues," "Organ Grinder Blues," etc.) on Columbia's 14000 race series. During the 1920s, Waters performed and was recorded with the ensembles of Will Marion Cook and Lovie Austin. As her career continued, she evolved toward being a blues and Broadway singer, performing with artists such as Duke Ellington. She remained with Columbia through 1931. She then signed with Brunswick in 1932 and remained until 1933 when she went back to Columbia. She signed with Decca in late 1934 for only two sessions, as well as a single session in early 1938. She recorded for the specialty label "Liberty Music Shops" in 1935 and again in 1940. Between 1938 and 1939, she recorded for Bluebird.
In 1933, Waters made a satirical all-black film entitled Rufus Jones for President, which featured then-child performer Sammy Davis Jr. as Rufus Jones. She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where, according to her autobiography, she "sang 'Stormy Weather' from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated." She had a featured role in the wildly successful Irving Berlin Broadway musical revue As Thousands Cheer in 1933, where she was the first black woman in an otherwise white show. She had three gigs at this point; in addition to the show, she starred in a national radio program and continued to work in nightclubs. She was the highest paid performer on Broadway at that time. MGM hired Lena Horne as the ingenue in the all-Black musical Cabin in the Sky, and Waters starred as Petunia in 1942, reprising her stage role of 1940. The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, was a success.
She began to work with Fletcher Henderson again in the late 1940s. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1949 for the film Pinky, under the direction of Elia Kazan, after original director, John Ford, quit, due to his disagreements with Waters. According to producer Daryl Zanuck, Ford "hated that old...woman (Waters)." Ford, Karzan stated, "Didn't know how to reach Ethel Waters." Kazan later referred to Water's "Truly odd combination of old-time religiosity and free-flowing hatred.". In 1950, she won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance opposite Julie Harris in the play The Member of the Wedding. Waters and Harris repeated their roles in the 1952 film version of Member of the Wedding'' In 1950, Waters starred in the television series Beulah, but quit after complaining that the scripts' portrayal of blacks was "degrading." She later guest starred in 1957 and 1959 on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In the 1957 episode, she sang "Cabin in the Sky."
Despite these successes, her brilliant career was fading. She lost tens of thousands in jewelry and cash in a robbery, and had difficulties with the IRS. Her health suffered, and she worked only sporadically in following years. In 1950-51 she wrote the autobiography His Eye is on the Sparrow with Charles Samuels, in which she wrote candidly about her life. She explains why her age has often been misstated: her mother had had to sign a paper claiming Waters was four years older than she was, and that she was born in 1896. His Eye is on the Sparrow was adapted for a stage production in which she was portrayed by Ernestine Jackson. In her second autobiography, To Me, It's Wonderful, Waters states that she was born in 1900. Rosetta Reitz called Waters "a natural ... Her songs are enriching, nourishing. You will want to play them over and over again, idling in their warmth and swing. Though many of them are more than 50 years old, the music and the feeling are still there."
Waters is the great-aunt of singer-songwriter Crystal Waters. Waters often toured with Billy Graham on his crusades. She died on September 1, 1977, aged 80, from uterine cancer, kidney failure, and other ailments in Chatsworth, California.
Recordings of Ethel Waters were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
Her best-known recordings include "Dinah," "Stormy Weather," "Taking a Chance on Love," "Heat Wave," "Supper Time," "Am I Blue?" and "Cabin in the Sky," as well as her version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Waters was the second African American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She is also the first African American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award, in 1962.
Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1896, as a result of the rape of her teenaged mother, Louise Anderson (believed to have been thirteen years old at the time, although some sources indicate she may have been slightly older), by John Waters, a pianist and family acquaintance from a mixed-race middle-class background. Waters played no role in raising Ethel. Ethel Waters was raised in poverty and never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. She said of her difficult childhood, "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
Waters grew tall, standing 5'9½" in her teens. According to women-in-jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters' birth in the North and her peripatetic life exposed her to many cultures.
Waters married at the age of 13, but soon left her abusive husband 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, MD. She later recalled that she earned the rich sum of ten dollars a week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.
After her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville circuit. As she described it later, "I used to work from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival, traveling in freight cars along the carnival circuit and eventually reaching Chicago. Waters 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." She did not last long with them, though, and soon headed south to Atlanta, where she worked in the same club with 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 there became a celebrity performer in the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s.
Waters obtained her first Harlem job at Edmond's Cellar, a club that had a black patronage. She specialized in popular ballads and became an actress in a blackface comedy called Hello 1919. Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz points 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, on the tiny Cardinal Records label. She later joined Black Swan Records, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she would prefer, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass."
She recorded with Black Swan from 1921 through 1923. In early 1924, Paramount bought the Black Swan label, and she stayed with Paramount through that year. Waters first recorded for Columbia Records in 1925, achieving a hit with her voicing of "Dinah", which was voted a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Soon after, she started working with Pearl Wright, and together they toured in the South. In 1924, Waters played at the Plantation Club on Broadway. She also toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters. With Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time" Keith Vaudeville Circuit, a traditional white-audience based vaudeville circuit 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 1929, Waters and Pearl Wright arranged the unreleased Harry Akst song "Am I Blue?," which then appeared in the movie On with the Show and became a hit and her signature tune.
Although she was considered a blues singer during the pre-1925 period, Waters belonged to the vaudeville style of Mamie Smith, Viola McCoy, and Lucille Hegamin. While with Columbia, she introduced many popular standards including "Dinah," "Heebie Jeebies," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Someday, Sweetheart," "Am I Blue?" and "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue" on the popular series, while she continued to sing blues (like "West End Blues," "Organ Grinder Blues," etc.) on Columbia's 14000 race series. During the 1920s, Waters performed and was recorded with the ensembles of Will Marion Cook and Lovie Austin. As her career continued, she evolved toward being a blues and Broadway singer, performing with artists such as Duke Ellington. She remained with Columbia through 1931. She then signed with Brunswick in 1932 and remained until 1933 when she went back to Columbia. She signed with Decca in late 1934 for only two sessions, as well as a single session in early 1938. She recorded for the specialty label "Liberty Music Shops" in 1935 and again in 1940. Between 1938 and 1939, she recorded for Bluebird.
In 1933, Waters made a satirical all-black film entitled Rufus Jones for President, which featured then-child performer Sammy Davis Jr. as Rufus Jones. She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where, according to her autobiography, she "sang 'Stormy Weather' from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated." She had a featured role in the wildly successful Irving Berlin Broadway musical revue As Thousands Cheer in 1933, where she was the first black woman in an otherwise white show. She had three gigs at this point; in addition to the show, she starred in a national radio program and continued to work in nightclubs. She was the highest paid performer on Broadway at that time. MGM hired Lena Horne as the ingenue in the all-Black musical Cabin in the Sky, and Waters starred as Petunia in 1942, reprising her stage role of 1940. The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, was a success.
She began to work with Fletcher Henderson again in the late 1940s. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1949 for the film Pinky, under the direction of Elia Kazan, after original director, John Ford, quit, due to his disagreements with Waters. According to producer Daryl Zanuck, Ford "hated that old...woman (Waters)." Ford, Karzan stated, "Didn't know how to reach Ethel Waters." Kazan later referred to Water's "Truly odd combination of old-time religiosity and free-flowing hatred.". In 1950, she won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance opposite Julie Harris in the play The Member of the Wedding. Waters and Harris repeated their roles in the 1952 film version of Member of the Wedding'' In 1950, Waters starred in the television series Beulah, but quit after complaining that the scripts' portrayal of blacks was "degrading." She later guest starred in 1957 and 1959 on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In the 1957 episode, she sang "Cabin in the Sky."
Despite these successes, her brilliant career was fading. She lost tens of thousands in jewelry and cash in a robbery, and had difficulties with the IRS. Her health suffered, and she worked only sporadically in following years. In 1950-51 she wrote the autobiography His Eye is on the Sparrow with Charles Samuels, in which she wrote candidly about her life. She explains why her age has often been misstated: her mother had had to sign a paper claiming Waters was four years older than she was, and that she was born in 1896. His Eye is on the Sparrow was adapted for a stage production in which she was portrayed by Ernestine Jackson. In her second autobiography, To Me, It's Wonderful, Waters states that she was born in 1900. Rosetta Reitz called Waters "a natural ... Her songs are enriching, nourishing. You will want to play them over and over again, idling in their warmth and swing. Though many of them are more than 50 years old, the music and the feeling are still there."
Waters is the great-aunt of singer-songwriter Crystal Waters. Waters often toured with Billy Graham on his crusades. She died on September 1, 1977, aged 80, from uterine cancer, kidney failure, and other ailments in Chatsworth, California.
Recordings of Ethel Waters were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
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Ethel Waters Lyrics
A Hundred Years From Today Life is such a great adventure Learn to live it as…
A New Kind Of Love Sweet one, fairer than the flowers Never will I meet one…
After All These Years We've loved each other since we went to school But…
Ain't Gonna Marry I ain't gonna marry I ain't gonna settle down Doggone my…
All the Time Don't know why There's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather S…
Am I Blue I'm just a woman, a lonely woman Waiting on the weary…
Am I Blue ? I'm just a woman, a lonely woman Waiting on the weary…
Am I Blue? I'm just a woman, a lonely woman Waiting on the weary…
As Thousands Cheer: Heat Wave A heat wave blew right into town last week She came…
Black and Blue Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead Pains in my head,…
Brown Baby Spoken: Hello, folks, at last I'm back again! I'm going bac…
Buds Won't Bud Buds won't bud, breeze won't breeze and dew won't dew, One…
Cabin In The Sky In this cloudy sky overhead now There's no guiding star I…
Can Oh listen, sister I love my mister man and I can't…
Careless Love Love, oh love, oh careless love You've fly through my head…
Come Up And See Me Sometime Here am I, I'm laying all my cards upon the…
Did You Ever If you ever change your mind, Come back the minute that…
Dinah Carolina Gave me Dinah; I'm the proudest one Beneath the…
Don't blame me Ever since the lucky night I found you I've hung around…
Down Home Blues I never felt So lonesome before; My friend has quit…
Frankie & Johnny Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts, Boy, how they could lov…
Georgia Blue I feel bad, I feel sad, But it won't be…
Georgia On My Mind Georgia, Georgia The whole day through (the whole day throug…
Get Up Off Your Knees A trifling man came home one night And tiptoed to his…
Happinees Is a Thing Called Joe It seems like happiness is just a thing called Joe He's…
Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe It seems like happiness is just a thing called Joe He's…
Happiness Is Just a Thing... It seems like happiness is just a thing called Joe He's…
Harlem On My Mind Emeralds in my bracelets, diamonds in my rings A Riviera ch…
Heat Wave We're having a heat wave A tropical heat wave The temperatur…
heatwave A heat wave ride into town last week She came from…
Heebie Jeebies Say, I've got the heebies, I mean the jeebies, Talking…
His Eye Is On The Sparrow Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come, …
Home I never felt So lonesome before; My friend has quit…
Honey In A Hurry What have I got that the others ain't That always seems…
I I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man Who…
I Ain't Gonna Sin No More Good people, good people Members of the congregation Old man…
I can Gee, but it's tough to be broke, kid. It's not a…
I Found A New Baby Waters Ethel Miscellaneous I've Found a New Baby Everybody l…
I Got Rhythm I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man Who…
I Wonder What Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead Pains in my head,…
I'll Get Along Somehow Many months have come and gone Since you called me…
I've Found a New Baby Everybody look at me, Happy girlie, you will see, I've…
If you can If you ever change your mind, Come back the minute that…
If You Ever Changed My Mind If you ever change your mind, Come back the minute that…
It's Only A Paper Moon I never feel a thing is real When I'm away…
Ive found a new baby Everybody look at me, Happy girlie, you will see, I've…
Jeepers creepers I don't care what the weatherman says When the weatherman sa…
Lonesome Walls When my man told me when they took me away That…
Loud Speakin' Papa Lucy Lee from Tennessee, Went and bought a radio set; She al…
Love Is The Thing My darling all around us people clamour They're striving for…
Memories of You Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Midnight Blues Daddy, Daddy, please come back to me! Daddy, Daddy, please…
Miss Otis Regrets Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today, madam Miss Ot…
Moonglow It must have been moonglow, way up in the blue It…
My Baby Sure KNows How To Love When the world began It started with a man Now the world…
My Handy Man Whoever said a good man was hard to find, Positively,…
My Handyman Whoever said a good man was hard to find, Positively,…
My Kind of Man Whoever said a good man was hard to find, Positively,…
No Man You may wonder what's the reason For this great big…
No Man's Mama - A Woman's Choice Waters Ethel Miscellaneous No Man's Mamma You may wonder wha…
No Man'S Mamma You may wonder what's the reason For this great big…
No One Can Love Me (Like The Way You Do) (Original) Collapsing was much softer Still falling always hurt Only af…
Oh Daddy Waters Ethel Miscellaneous Oh, Daddy Just like a flower, I a…
Old Man Harlem Day-light gives me the shivers, Harlem did it some-how. Alwa…
One Sweet Letter from You I'm so blue, lonesome, too And I wonder where you are…
Organ grinder blues Organ grinder, organ grinder Organ grinder, play that melody…
Paper Moon I never feel a thing is real When I'm away…
Please Don Years we've been together Seems we can't get along, No matte…
Reprise of Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe It seems like happiness is just a thing called Joe He's…
River Stay You're just a lonely little river, But I have heard somebody…
Royal Garden Blues No use of talkin' no use of talkin' You'll start in…
Shake That Thing Down in Georgia, got a dance that's new, Ain't nothin'…
Shine On Harvest Moon Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky I…
Someday Sweetheart Someday, sweetheart, You may be sorry For what you've done T…
st louis blues I hate to see that evening sun go down I hate…
Stormy Weather Don't know why There's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather S…
Stormy Weather (Keeps Rainin' All the Time) (78rpm Version) dont know why therea no sun up in the sky stormy…
Sugar Have you heard What I've done, Found a word, Just…
Supper Time Supper time I should set the table 'Cause it's supper time…
Sweet Georgia Brown She just got here yesterday, Things are hot here now,…
Sweet Man TNT, gasoline, Even nitroglycerin, Ain't got the kick of k…
Sympathetic Dan And my words will be here when I′m gone As I'm…
Take Your Black Bottom Outside Sheepdog Standing in the rain, Bullfrog Doing it again Some …
Takin' a Chance on Love Here I go again, I hear those trumpets blow again. All…
That Da Da Strain Have you heard it, have you heard it, That Da…
There They say don't change the old for the new, But…
There ll Be Some Changes Made They say don't change the old for the new, But…
There'll Be Some Changes Made They say don't change the old for the new, But…
They say They say you have no lips for a fool such…
Three Little Words Three little words, Oh, what I'd give for that wonderful ph…
Tiger Rag Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! …
Trav'lin' All Alone I'm so weary and all alone Feel tired like heavy stone …
True Blue Lou Down in the poolroom Some of the gang were Talking of gals…
Waiting at the End of the Road Weary of roamin' on, Yearning to see the dawn, Counting the …
What Did I Do To Be So Black And Blue Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead Pains in my head,…
What goes up must come down You leave me alone, you don't even phone You're carefree as…
When It's Sleepy Time Homesick tired All alone in a big city Why should…
When Your Lover Has Gone What good is the scheming, the planning and dreaming That c…
You Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be B…
You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me Sweet one, fairer than the flowers Never will I meet one…
You Can't Do What My Last Man Did Listen, daddy mine, what do you want of me? I've been…
You Can't Stop Me from Loving You You can throw bricks at my window You can put tacks…
You had it comin' to you Well you walk like I thought you'd walk And you talk…
You're a Sweetheart You're a sweetheart, if there ever was one If there ever…
You're Mine You're mine, you're mine I want the world to know You're min…
You’re A Sweetheart You're a sweetheart, if there ever was one If there ever…