Waters was very talented and had many achievements. After her start in Baltimore, she toured honkytonks in the South. As she described it later, "I used to work from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, Waters fell on hard times and joined up with a carnival which traveled in freight cars to
Chicago, Illinois. She enjoyed her time with the carnival, and recalled, "The roustabouts and the concessionaires were the kind of people I'd grown up with, rough, tough, full of larceny towards strangers, but sentimental, and loyal to their friends and co-workers." She did not last long with them, though, and soon headed south to
Atlanta, Georgia. There, she worked in the same club with Bessie Smith. Smith demanded that she not compete in singing the blues opposite her, and Waters conceded to the older woman and instead sang ballads and popular songs and danced. Though perhaps best known for her blues singing today, Waters was to go on to star in musicals, plays and TV and return to the blues only periodically.
She fell in love with a drug addict in this early period, but their stormy relationship ended with
World War I. She moved to
Harlem and became part of the
Harlem Renaissance around 1919.
Waters obtained her first job around at
Edmond's Cellar, a club that had a black patronage. She specialized in popular ballads, and became an actress in a
blackface comedy called
Hello 1919. Her biographer Rosetta Reitz points out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, women blues singers were among the most powerful entertainers in the country, and that year Ethel became the fifth black woman to make a record. She later joined
Black Swan Records, where
Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she would prefer, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass." According to Waters, she influenced Henderson to practice in a "real jazz" style. She first recorded for
Columbia Records in 1925; this recording was given a
Grammy Hall of Fame Award in
1998. Soon after, Waters started working with
Pearl Wright, and together they toured in the South. In 1924 Waters played at the
Plantation Club on
Broadway. She also toured with the
Black Swan Dance Masters. With
Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time"
Keith Circuit. They received rave reviews in Chicago, and earned the unheard of salary of US$1,250 in 1928. In 1929,
Harry Akst helped Pearl and Ethel compose a version of "
Am I Blue?," her signature tune.
During the 1920s, Waters performed and/or was recorded with the ensembles of
Will Marion Cook and
Lovie Austin. As her career continued, she evolved toward being a
blues and
Broadway singer performing with artists such as
Duke Ellington.
In 1933, Waters made a satirical all-black film entitled
Rufus Jones for President. She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where, according to her autobiography, she "sang "
Stormy Weather" from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated." She took a role in the Broadway musical revue
As Thousands Cheer in 1933, where she was the first black woman in an otherwise white show. She had three gigs at this point; in addition to the show, she starred in a national radio program and continued to work in nightclubs. She was the highest paid performer on Broadway, but she was starting to age.
MGM hired
Lena Horne as the ingenue in the all-Black musical
Cabin in the Sky, and Waters starred as Petunia in 1942 reprising her stage role of 1940. The film, directed by
Vincente Minnelli, was a success, but Waters, offended by the adulation accorded Horne and feeling her age, went into something of a decline.
She began to work with
Fletcher Henderson again in the late 1940s. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award in 1949 for the film
Pinky. In 1950, she won the New York Drama Critics Award for her performance opposite
Julie Harris in the play
The Member of the Wedding. Waters and Harris repeated their roles in the 1952 film version of
Member of the Wedding.
In 1950, Waters starred in the
television series Beulah but quit after complaining that the scripts were portraying African-Americans as "degrading." Despite these successes, her brilliant career was fading. She lost tens of thousands in jewelry and cash in a robbery, and the
IRS hounded her. Her health suffered, and Waters worked only sporadically in following years.`In 1950-51 she wrote her biography "His Eye is on the Sparrow" with Charles Samuels. In it, she talks candidly about her life. She also explains why her age was confused, saying that her mama had to sign a paper saying she was 4 years older that she was. She states she was born in 1900.
Said her biographer Rosetta Reitz, Waters was a natural. Her "songs are enriching, nourishing. You will want to play them over and over again, idling in their warmth and swing. Though many of them are more than 50 years old, the music and the feeling are still there."
