Ethel Waters

With all that Ethel Waters has contributed to music and film, it is surprising that she is often forgotten. She was a talented blues singer whose unique style distinguished her from other blues singers and she was a jazz vocalist as well. Her talent extended beyond singing, when she became a dramatic actress who earned award nominations for her performances. What was most remarkable about Waters' performances was how she reconstructed the mammy character into one that challenged stereotypes.

Career as a Singer

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896. She had a hard life in which she faced rejection from her mother and poverty. Waters' love of singing began as a child when she sang in church choirs but her childhood was cut short when at thirteen she married an abusive man, dropped out of sixth grade, and was divorced a year later. Shortly thereafter, she began working as a maid until two vaudeville producers discovered her while she was singing in a talent contest in 1917. She toured with vaudeville shows, and was billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" because of her height and thinness. In 1919, she left the vaudeville circuit and performed in Harlem nightclubs. Two years later she became one of the first black singers to cut a record on the Black Swan Record label with her release of "Down Home Blues" and "Oh, Daddy".

The record was a success and Waters went on tour and received great acclaim. She toured with Fletcher Henderson and the Black Swan Jazz Masters. The Chicago Defender and other newspapers gave the tour substantial notoriety. The tour increased Black Swan's revenues, and made Waters a top performer who became known for her shimmies and soft style of singing.

Waters' success was related to her style of singing. She could sing like other classic blues singers with plenty of passion and fire, but she had a unique approach. She was not a shouter but was able to hold the attention of the audience with her low and sweet voice. According to Jimmy McPartland, who saw her in the 1927 show Miss Calico, "We were enthralled with her. We liked Bessie Smith very much, too, but Waters had more polish, I guess you'd say. She phrased so wonderfully, the natural quality of her voice was so fine . . ." Waters introduced a new style of the blues, one that was influenced by her grandmother who always told her "You don't have to holler so. God has very big ears. He can hear you even if you whisper." Just the opposite, her mother's preference was more in line with the Holy Rollers and the Baptists style. Waters' style was a combination of both these approaches. The result was one that was characterized by sophistication, refinement, moderation, only rare growls, and precise enunciation.

Waters' unique style contributed her ability to sing various styles of music. Like other classic blues singers, she could sing torches, pop songs from Tin Pan Alley, vaudeville, and musical theatre tunes. Her style encompassed the use of wide vocal ranges and upbeat rhythmic renditions that were similar to vaudeville singing. According to Clyde Bernhardt, a jazz musician who saw her perform in 1921 at the Chestnut Auditorium in Pennsylvania, she could do the blues, a fast-tempo jazz song, and a ballad and make it sound beautiful.

Because of her varied repertoire, she has also been categorized as a jazz singer. Her rhythm was closer to jazz than blues and in her later career she sang popular songs with a jazz approach. Jazz critic, Hugues Panassie wrote that Waters was a great jazz singer. He praises her clear voice, her extensive range, the ease in which she sings, and the perfect tone of every note. He also claims that her influence on female jazz singers is "almost as great as that of Louis Armstrong."(3) She influenced such great singers as Billie Holiday who took songs from her repertoire and recorded them as "Billie's Blues" and Sophie Tucker who paid Waters to sing for her privately so that she could study her style. Other admirers included Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, the Boswell Sisters, and Eartha Kitt.

Waters' talent extended beyond musical style, she also had the gift of interpretation. She set a new standard with her rendition of "Stormy Weather" at the Cotton Club in 1933. Waters changed the original interpretation of the ending and gave it a dramatic conclusion. Her performance was unforgettable and was the talk of New York. Her interpretive talent would not go to waste. As blues women began to fade in popularity, Waters was able use her interpretive ability to take advantage of acting opportunities on stage and screen.

In the 1930s, the increased demand for all-black musicals created parts for African Americans. Ethel Waters took advantage of this opportunity and eventually became a serious actress. With limited parts available for a big black woman, Waters most often impersonated the mammy character but she was able to alter the mammy's traditional interpretation.

Career as an Actress

In the late 1920s and the 1930s, Ethel Waters was cast in a number of shows, but it was not until her part in Mamba's Daughters, that she became a dramatic actress. Through her part, she challenged attitudes that African American women could perform only in dancing and singing roles. In the play, she was cast as Hagar, a mother, who is unaware of who is the father of her daughter. The play opened January 3, 1939 at the Empire Theatre in New York and Waters received seventeen curtain calls. The audiences reacted favorable to the show and almost all reviews raved at Waters' performance. The critic Arthur Pollock wrote that Waters was one of the finest actresses, white or black.

Despite the limited roles available, Waters never interpreted a role as written and the 1940 Broadway play Cabin in the Sky was not an exception. In her role as Petunia, she created another dimension to her character by making changes to the part. For instance, in one scene, she kicks up her heels to do the jitterbug and performs it in a sexy way, showing that a large black