(Source: enelcielocondiamantes)
ETHEL WATERS (1900-1977) “Sweet Mama Stringbean”
Probably the most popular black female singer of the late 1920s and early ‘30s was Ethel Waters. Born 1896 in Philadelphia Waters began performing in that area with a style steeped in the vaudeville and minstrel sounds of the day.
In New York in the early 1920s she was a superstar in black theatrical revues; and by the early 30’s was the most popular, highest paid black woman in show business. Waters was first to break the color line in 1933 appearing on Broadway in the all-white show, “As Thousands Cheer,” later moving successfully into film, her best known being “Cabin in the Sky.”
Tall and slim in her youth when she was billed as “Sweet Mama Stringbean,” Ethel was often accompanied on record by the era’s finest jazz instrumentalists: Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, Ellington, Benny Carter, Fletcher Henderson & James P. Johnson.
