Heat Wave

by Donald Bogle

  But a young Black man, who had heard her at Edmond’s, had kept his eye on her, and had aggressively sought a friendship, was confident that she had the talent to make it on what was known as the “white time”—working in theaters or clubs where most of the clientele was white. That young man, an entertainer himself, was Earl Dancer, who had already been dismissed by Waters time and again. But, finally, it would be Dancer who persuaded Waters to take the leap into the next phase of her career.

  Chapter 4

  Back in the City

  SHE TOOK LITTLE TIME OFF. Black Swan made sure of that. The Pace Phonograph Company had moved up in the world. Having relocated the offices from Harry Pace’s basement to a new building the company bought at 2289 Seventh Avenue—with a recording facility and a pressing plant in Long Island City—Harry Pace and his staff knew that Ethel’s hits had built this company. Black Swan was now recording other artists and other musical genres: opera, choral groups, and symphony orchestras. Harry Pace’s dream of a Black record company that had product not only for the Negro masses but also for the educated Black middle class—and some white record buyers as well—looked as if it were about to come true. At her first session in July, Waters cut four new songs: “Jazzin’ Babies Blues,” “Kind Lovin’ Blues,” “Georgia Blues,” and “That Da Da Strain.” Backing her on the last recording were musicians Joe Smith on cornet; George Brashear on trombone; Fletcher Henderson on piano; and possibly Clarence Robinson on clarinet. At another session a few months later, around October, she made two more recordings, backed by the same musicians: “At the New Jump Steady Ball” (a remake of the song she had originally recorded for Cardinal) and “Oh Joe, Play That Trombone.” Of all these songs, “That Da Da Strain” became the big hit. Ethel remained the undisputed queen of the label.

  Her career was now built significantly but not exclusively on her recordings. Not only did the records bring her hefty royalties, but they also led to other bookings and assured her of headliner status in her personal appearances. The two went hand and hand, one feeding the other. For later generations, this type of recording-tour promotional strategy would be taken for granted: a big tour would usually follow the release of a new album or CD. But in the 1920s, this was relatively new to Black recording artists. Ethel was also said to be one of the first Black performers to actually earn royalties. Often performers simply received a flat fee for their work. During the Great Depression, when Bessie Smith was making her last recordings, she asked producer John Hammond, “Ain’t I gonna87 get no royalty?” He replied: “I’m afraid there’s no room for a royalty.”

  Ethel understood, however, that it was important not to waste time between the recording dates. Therefore she maintained a busy schedule of engagements at theaters. Soon she was in musical revues and then back on the road. Many producers of Black shows never considered Broadway their goal. Instead their productions could be performed at Black theaters and turn something of a profit. Any number of new comedies, musicals, and revues were in and out of the Lincoln and the Lafayette. The same was true in other cities. Before the success of Shuffle Along, writers Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles had created shows for the Pekin Theatre in Chicago. So had a talented, well-respected composer like Will Marion Cook. Because Black audiences were hungry for shows with Black entertainers, far-fetched comic skits, and language and points of view they could identify with, Black shows could tour the country just like the vaudeville acts and make money. Producers such as Lewis Rogers and creative talents J. Homer Tutt and Salem Tutt Whitney threw together traveling shows that reached Black audiences in cities everywhere from Boston to St. Louis and in parts of the South. Though Black entertainers were glad to get the work, such shows could be murder for the entertainers. Production values were low. Sets could be tacky; costumes, worn and dreary. Schedules were hectic. Traveling itself, especially in the segregated South, was still maddening. But Ethel, ever the realist, knew this was meat-and-potatoes work. She just shrugged her shoulders and went about the business of getting into such shows and entertaining the colored masses. Besides, for her there was now the pull and the power of the audiences themselves.

  Following the Black Swan tour, she joined the cast of a revue called Jump Steady at the Lafayette Theatre. Little more than a collection of skits and musical numbers, Jump Steady featured Waters singing and also performing comedy bits. That same year, she was approached by the two high-rolling producers in the Negro theatrical market, J. Homer Tutt and Salem Tutt Whitney, to appear in their revue Oh! Joy! Their plan was to open the show out of town and eventually take it to Broadway. Though pleased to headline in what might be a classy show in New York, Waters turned the offer down because she knew Tutt and Whitney’s first choice had been singer Sara Martin, whom Waters liked. But the two men were persistent in urging her to agree to do the show. Finally, she asked for more money than she thought they would pay her: the hefty sum of $150 a week. As would so often happen in the future, the producers surprised her by meeting her demands. “However, there is a88 bad angle to this,” Waters recalled. “I would always have to go out there and work my head off—so I wouldn’t feel guilty and a thief.” And before signing Ethel to the agreement, the producers also had to provide a part for Ethel Williams.

  Their relationship was as strong as ever and continued to be productive for both. The two might argue, but they understood each other: they were almost able to read each other’s minds, to anticipate each other’s moods. The women also felt comfortable enough to reveal their vulnerabilities to each other, or at least not to hide them. Working and traveling together, they had shared experiences, and each was ready to come to the other’s defense. Neither, however, apparently thought of theirs as a lifelong commitment. It would be hard to say if this was Waters’ most satisfying relationship, but most likely it did give her a stability she had long craved.

  For Oh! Joy! Waters created a comedy routine for the two of them which she always enjoyed and used on numerous occasions. Soon after the curtain rose, Williams was seen alone onstage, asking the orchestra leader, “Where’s that Ethel Waters?” Shortly afterward, Waters would sashay onstage, dressed in gingham and a funny hat. Thereupon Williams would ask, “Are you Ethel Waters?” “Well, I ain’t Bessie Smith.” Audiences usually howled over the entrance. The comic dialogue was Waters’ way of paying homage to Bessie. She was both associating herself with and distinguishing herself from the Empress. She was now a star in her own right. Aside from the comic bits, Waters performed her Black Swan numbers, which, of course, proved the high point of the evening. Other acts—the standard comics, dancers, singers—would also appear.

  Oh! Joy! met with problems during its run at the Arlington Square Theatre in Boston. Basically, Oh! Joy! was a weak show that failed to draw an audience. Money was so tight that the producers didn’t know if they could keep the revue running. Because they could pay her but not the rest of the cast, Waters agreed to take a salary cut. But later she learned that the producers had also met with the rest of the cast and explained they couldn’t pay them because Ethel was demanding her entire paycheck. That didn’t win Waters any new friends backstage, and it certainly didn’t endear the producers to Ethel.

  In Roxbury, outside Boston, Ethel was in a car accident when the vehicle she was riding in slammed into a truck. She was left with a small scar on her face, but, fortunately, she had no serious injuries. She dropped out of the show, but once she had recuperated, Tutt and Whitney wanted her back as they headed to a New York opening. Ethel weighed the offer, but the breaking point occurred when the two men informed her that because no Broadway theater was available, they had decided to convert the Van Kelton tennis stadium into a theater. They rented a large tent for $1,000 and set it up in the stadium. Inside the tent, they installed a stage for $2,000. New York’s newest theater was called Bamboo Isle. Waters was assured by the producers that Bamboo Isle would be a novelty that audiences would rush to. “It ain’t no novelty89 to me,” she told them. “The days when
I worked in a tent are over forever. I slept with the horses for the last time, I hope.” She severed her ties with the production. Oh! Joy! did have its New York opening, in that large tent no less. But the musical didn’t fare well.

  Afterward Ethel accepted an offer to do a TOBA tour. Then came the musical Dumb Luck, another hodgepodge entertainment piece with skits, sketches, songs, and dances, all loosely tied together, with music by the young writers Donald Heywood and Porter Grainger. Dumb Luck headlined Ethel in a large cast of 93 performers that included Alberta Hunter, Cleo Desmond, Boots Marshall, Lottie Tyler, Ethel Williams, and an actress named Edna Scottron Horne, the mother of a little girl who would grow up to become a major star and a chief Waters rival, Lena Horne. But Dumb Luck was another half-baked, ill-conceived production that ran into money problems. Shortly after an early September opening at the Lyceum Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, Dumb Luck folded. “The show was lousy90, so they closed,” Alberta Hunter recalled. But worse, the producers gathered the cast and informed them that there was not enough money to pay their salaries or even to get cast and crew back to New York. Ethel was so angry, Hunter recalled, that she gathered all the costumes and then sold or pawned them. Her intention was to buy train tickets back to New York for the cast and crew, but Waters became annoyed by someone else. No one could say for sure. Hunter always believed that Ethel became upset because of the affection that Hunter had won from the rest of the cast. That may have been partly true, but it also may have been wish fulfillment on Hunter’s part. Still, all anyone knew, according to Alberta Hunter, was that in the end, Waters bought only two train tickets: one for herself and the other for Ethel Williams.

  Other tours followed. The next year—1923—she set off with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, this time traveling through the South with such acts as Big Joe Williams and the Birmingham Jug Band. Then came appearances at New York’s Lafayette Theatre and the Alhambra Theatre and then another tour as a headliner, backed by Fletcher Henderson.

  Assuming new responsibilities, she decided what songs she’d sing and which skits she’d appear in—skits that she herself often wrote. As it turned out, she enjoyed comedy. Drama would have appealed to her more, but there was no place for it in these traveling shows. For her comedy bits, she liked the down-home bandannas and frumpy gingham. But for her big musical numbers, unlike the old days when she had to grab whatever she could find at the rummage sales, she now hired dressmakers to create stylish, sophisticated gowns. Usually, she preferred full-length slinky dresses that showed off her long, sinuous form and her curves. Throughout each evening’s performance, she seemed to relish the idea of transformation: going from old-style backwoods Southern funny gal to new-style, high-flung, sexy urban diva. The makeup was heavily applied with an emphasis on the expressive eyes and mouth and the rich brown coloring. Yet it was never overdone and, offstage, never overly theatrical.

  The tours were long and draining, and this in turn made Waters all the more demanding of herself and everyone else around her. By now, word of her temper preceded her: most of the people who worked with her had heard about it even before rehearsals began. If something went wrong or didn’t meet her standards, everyone had to be ready for one expletive after another. Then, too, the traveling, the climate changes, the constant performances themselves—several shows a night—began to affect her voice. Her throat might be dry or itchy. Sometimes she had to let her voice rest—and so no doubt there were occasions when she wouldn’t speak much offstage, going on voice alert to protect her vocal cords.

  What concerned her most, though, was to have the best background sound and support, especially from the musician at the piano. Fletcher had become more adroit at understanding her needs, and though she still argued with him, ultimately, he gave her what she wanted. But by 1923, Fletcher had formed his own band and had his own traveling schedule. Much as she might have wanted to take him for granted, she knew she couldn’t. In search of the right pianist to travel with her on those long frantic tours, she tried out various accompanists. Then in New York, while in preparation for an engagement in Chicago, Ethel hired a young African American pianist named Pearl Wright.

  At first glance, Wright’s personal style and demeanor, much like Fletcher Henderson’s, appeared totally different from Ethel’s. Having grown up in Georgia, the daughter of a Negro politician named W. A. Wimberly, and a graduate of Atlanta University, Pearl had married a physician named Wright and was the mother of two children, Kathryn and Vivian. But her marriage had failed. To support herself, Wright taught at Jackson Baptist College and later in Nashville. In 1922, she moved to New York for further study. Though she might seem the typical bourgeois young woman, one of those dictys, Wright was adventurous and ready to do all she could to escape a staid existence. Apparently, being a doctor’s wife was not what she wanted, nor was she interested in the settled life of a schoolteacher, although stability of some sort was important to her because of her children. She liked the fact that the job with Ethel meant varied experiences that would pay more than she would have earned in the classroom.

  Wright also had the right temperament to work for Ethel: patient but no doormat, sensitive, nonjudgmental, with a good sense of humor. Here was someone Ethel could talk to, laugh with, confide in. Wright would see Waters both on and offstage with Ethel Williams, would ultimately be privy to Ethel’s ongoing, tangled relationships with Momweeze and Genevieve. Pearl would witness Ethel’s high-strung moments and her mellow, vulnerable ones, would know more about the professional woman and the private one than most people. She came to understand the foul moods and to expect the foul language. Wright also saw the ferocious religiosity of Waters, who often seemed puzzled why the good Lord had let so many evil people inhabit the earth. Wright, like Williams, saw it all. Yet Wright would be discreet in discussing Waters. Though it would be expensive for Ethel to hire Wright full-time—to put her on a weekly salary, to assume her traveling expenses when she was on the road, to also pay her during those downtimes when Ethel was not performing—Ethel decided to go the distance. Never regretting that decision, she and Wright became close friends and allies.

  Most significantly, on the road and in the recording studio, Pearl Wright was the consummate professional who could be depended on to produce the kind of sound that, as far as Ethel was concerned, Fletcher had only on his best days, after much prodding. Wright’s piano accompaniment proved perfect: Pearl Wright’s touch heightened Ethel’s vocals, gave them breathing space, underscored the clarity of her voice and the precision of her diction, and took the proper pauses on dramatic buildups, going strong on emotional climaxes. On her own, during the musical introductions or during interludes when there were breaks in the lyrics, she syncopated in a delightful, skilled way. Though strong enough on her own, she never overstepped and certainly never overpowered Ethel. Singer Etta Moten observed that it was always Pearl who was “ever in the background91 with firm but inconspicuous support on the piano, who knows when Waters is going to wait longer than usual to sing the next word.” Wright was there to serve the queen, not usurp her throne. It proved an ideal combination.

  She also established a friendship with Williams and let it be known that she was not a threat to Williams’ relationship with Waters. No doubt she became aware of Williams’ self-doubts and her need for support. She also understood that at times Williams needed someone to talk to about Ethel: someone to gripe or complain to, someone to compare notes with about what motivated Waters, what upset her, what had to be done to calm her down.

  Over the years, Waters and Wright, along with Ethel Williams, shared rather typical vaudeville experiences: dealing with tough club owners and theater managers; maneuvering their way around horny men who’d had too much to drink or smoked too much reefer; rushing to make trains or hop into the company car to keep schedules; demanding that equipment and lighting and sound systems were in top-notch working condition. Wright also understood when she had to recede into the background to give Waters and Williams t
heir private space.

  From then on, Ethel and Pearl remained exceptionally close. Ethel came to depend on Pearl to handle a number of her business affairs: getting her income tax returns in order; sending photos to the fans, sometimes acting as her trusted secretary. When money was pouring in, Ethel was often charitable. Pearl was around to select families in need of help. In turn, Pearl could count on Ethel, in good and tough times. One Christmas when work was slow, Ethel told Pearl: “I know you want to send your kiddies something. Take this fifty dollars.” Later Pearl learned that Ethel had pawned a watch in order to help her. She never forgot it. In some respects, Pearl, precisely because of her middle-class background, was the kind of woman Ethel would always best relate to. When it came to the men in her life, she preferred the slick, highly sexed smooth-talkers with a street sophistication, who had educated themselves through their life experiences, not necessarily by reading books at college. With the women in her life, Ethel seemed to gravitate to more refined types, attractive, rather ladylike but not prissy, educated and cultivated, with a knowledge, whether basic or formal, of literature and the arts and of the social scene, too: women she could learn from. Ethel Williams possessed some of those qualities, especially the ability to mingle easily among the various echelons of show folk. So, apparently did Pearl. Both women helped give Ethel’s life a balance that she needed, and each woman was remarkable in her own right. Together, the three made a pretty good team.