Ethel Waters - What Did I Do To Be So Black And Blue?

[direfranchement]

I really don't think Ethel Waters' vocal legacy is as forgotten as you seem to indicate. Though she certainly deserves more contemporary recognition, her music catalogue was largely eclipsed by her acting career beginning in the 1930s. Her recording output also decreased in that decade...I call her the "Template" or the "Prototype". As Mahalia Jackson, a vocal disciple of Bessie Smith once said, "Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington...they all come from Ethel Waters".