Added: 4 years ago
From: mezzomoments
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  • Ethel is considered the mother of modern "pop' singing. Everyone from Bing Crosby to Mildred Bailey to Judy Garland copied her style. She was such a sensation that stars like Sophie Tucker paid her to teach them to sing in the new style. It is a shame that she is basically forgotten these days. If there were no Pops or Ethel where would music be?

  • I really like this......My mama first introduced me to her in" Cabin In The Sky"....I was like "Mama what's this!" I was happy she made me watch it. I loved the movie and I love this woman. She brings joy to my heart

  • She is just so incredibly amazing - as incredible at the end of her life as she was here. Thank God we have these bits of film from this era to see what all the hoop-la was about over her. She was the first black crossover artist - whites came to black theaters to see and hear her-she was the first Black superstar admired and loved by blacks and whites. Both her autobiographies are amazing too! An "untrained" singer, she was groundbreaking and her influence is not acknowledged enough.

  • Very interesting biography.

  • she was the greatest - she set the pattern that almost all popular singer, black or white, followed - but,as this video shows, she wasn't just influential, she was brilliant. others could follow her lead, but no one ever sang like waters did - great stuff! thanks for posting!

  • Thank you Welch 57. I have read the book you mentioned, Ethel Waters, Stormy Weather, and you're right, it's brilliant. A really interesting account of that great woman's life.

  • Thanks, dzpink! I love Ethel too, but it saddens me that she doesn't have a stonger place in music/film/theatre history. She influenced Billie, Ella & Lena. Ethel was the first true voice of jazz (with Mr Armstrong). Thank goodness we can see wonderful archive film of her on YouTube, which demonstrate some of her greatness.

  • That was just so fantastic! Where's it from? Which film? What date? Thank you so so much for posting this. Ethel Waters was the best blues and jazz singer ever!

  • hello dz pink,

    it was on mezzo,a fragment of an blues/jazz documentary

  • yes she was,or is great,i love this.

  • 'Bubbling Over' (1934), "a twenty-minute musical that was full of stereotypes but redeemed by Ethel's singing". From the recently published and brilliant 'Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather (Scarecrow Press, 2007).

  • thx welch

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