Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters enjoyed an extensive career spanning multiple genres and ranks among the earliest authentic jazz vocalists who committed performances to record. Her exceptional skill and courageous stance against racial prejudice enabled her to achieve prominence as a performer on stage and screen throughout the 1930s and 1940s, all while remaining within the United States. Raised in the vicinity of Philadelphia, she cultivated a precise and readily comprehensible enunciation that set her apart from numerous peers of her era. Though initially regarded as a blues performer—and capable of delivering blues material nearly comparable to Bessie Smith—her jazz-infused discs from 1921 through 1928 exhibited a swinging quality prior to the popularization of that descriptor. Early success found her headlining at venues and clubs, where she debuted compositions including "Dinah," "Am I Blue" for a 1929 film, and "Stormy Weather." Seamlessly evolving from a 1920s jazz vocalist into a pop icon of the following decade, she exerted considerable impact upon subsequent singers such as Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, and Connee Boswell. During the second half of the 1930s, she traveled extensively alongside an ensemble led by her spouse, trumpeter Eddie Mallory. Her Broadway debut came with Mamba's Daughter in 1939, followed by her role in the 1943 motion picture Cabin in the Sky, for which she premiered "Taking a Chance on Love," "Good for Nothing Joe," along with the film's title song. Subsequent decades saw her in straight dramatic parts, and from 1960 onward her appearances were largely limited to sacred music in association with evangelist Billy Graham. All of her key sessions have been reissued by European Classics, retaining their vibrant and contemporary appeal to this day.