Music like Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896 (some sources incorrectly state her birth year as 1900) as a result of the rape of her teenaged African-American mother, Louise Anderson (1881–1962), by 17 year old John Wesley (or Wesley John) Waters (1878–1901), a pianist and family acquaintance from a middle-class African-American background. Waters' family was very fair skinned, his mother in particular. Many sources, including Ethel herself, reported for years that her mother was 12 or 13 years old at the time of the rape, 13 when Ethel was born. Stephen Bourne opens his 2007 biography, Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather, with the statement that genealogical research has shown that Louise Anderson may have been 15 or 16 years old.