Ethel Waters
(1896-1977)

Ethel Waters was an actress, blues singer, and a dancer. During her distinguished career she was best known as a dancer. A transitional performer, she bridged the gap between the musical theater generation and the heritage generation. In 1928, she danced and sang in the musical Africana. The revue reflected the need for Black Americans to make an artistic connection between themselves and Africa. It was the beginning of many such expressions as other generations of Black women dancers emerged.

Ethel Waters indeed had a hard life. She lived in the slums of Philadelphia and Chester, Pennsylvania, and was raised by her grandmother, a live-in housekeeper. Tall, big-boned, yet slender and attractive, Waters developed a tough assertiveness as a child that continued throughout her career, allowing her to eventually negotiate top salaries and to withstand the injustices and harshness or being a Black entertainer. Her life was a mixture of success and sadness; it was mainly through song that Waters found solace.

The song, &qout;His Eye Is on the Sparrow,&qout; gave Waters visibility but she was better known for launching &qout;Stormy Weather&qout; in a Cotton Club extravaganza in 1933. She continued to work as a blues singer on the southern vaudeville circuit, tent shows, and at Chicago's old Monogram Theater.

In 1919, when Harlem was the center of a national Black Renaissance, Waters arrived in New York, where she became one of the leading entertainers in the clubs and on stage. Her initial New York club appearances were at Edmund's Cellar, a small basement dive patronized by shady characters (she later described it as &qout;the last step on the way down&qout;). Her stint, there, however, resulted in her first recording for Black Swan Records in 1921. Waters recorded many songs for that label her major hits were &qout;Down Home Blues&qout; and &qout;Oh Daddy.&qout;

She established herself with new power on the stage in 1939 as the first Black woman to star in a Broadway drama with the lead role of Hagar in Mamba's Daughters. She received seventeen curtain calls on opening night.

She died in 1977 following a long struggle with cancer.