Ethel Waters Collection

Ethel Waters
(1896 – 1977)

Born October 31, 1896, in Chester, Pennsylvania, her eighty year life was a turbulent one filled with low valleys and high peaks. In her autobiography, "His Eye is on the Sparrow," she frankly detailed the nastiness of her childhood and early struggles. After many amateur night performances in Philadelphia Ethel's singing career began. Then she slowly moved into the Black theater route, where she was nicknamed as "Sweet Mama String bean."

To attain the lofty position she reached as a headliner, Ethel Waters must have been the pacesetter who unfastened all the theatrical doors which were, until then, closed to African American entertainers of her day. She strived long and hard to accomplish solo star standing in the white world of Broadway Theater, night clubs, vaudeville, radio, films and television.

She began recording in 1921 for the Black Swan label, continuing with that company through 1924. When she introduced "Dinah" at the famous Plantation Club (Broadway and 50th Street) in New York City in 1925, she met with such success that she was signed by Columbia Records, for whom she was to make many of her most famous recordings during the next decade. At the same time, she became the first black to star in a sponsored coast-to-coast old time radio show, accompanied by the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra.Please note these recordings are also available in the larger chronological Divas of Old Time Radio Collection.To attain the lofty position she reached as a headliner, Ethel Waters must have been the pacesetter who unfastened all the theatrical doors which were, until then, closed to African American entertainers of her day. She strived long and hard to accomplish solo star standing in the white world of Broadway Theater, night clubs,