Ethel Waters 1929 to 1931

Ethel Waters | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 6, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Classics
• ASIN: B000001NO2
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,937 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Second-Handed Man

2. True Blue Lou

3. Do I Know What I'm Doing?

4. Shoo Shoo Boogie Boo

5. Georgia Blues

6. I Like the Way He Does It

7. Waiting at the End of the Road

8. Trav'lin' All Alone

9. Long Lean Lanky Mama

10. Better Keep Your Eye on Your Man

11. Porgy

12. Black and Blue

13. My Kind of Man

14. You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me

15. You're Lucky to Me

16. Memories of You

17. I Got Rhythm

18. Three Little Words

19. When Your Lover Has Gone

20. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling display of confidence, swing, and ebullience, June 11, 2006

By 

Reviewer123 "cj123" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethel Waters 1929 to 1931 (Audio CD)

Every one of the Classics Discs of Ethel Waters, covering her recordings from 1921-1947, is worth owning for different reasons. If I had to pick a favorite, though, this one might be it. Although it has none of her best known hits, it has some of the finest singing she ever did, and in this reviewer's opinion, that ranks as some of the finest singing ever put on record. Waters diction, dramatic skill and unerring sense of timing are all well in evidence here, but what comes across particularly strongly in this record is her sheer ebullience and confidence. Nothing seems out of her power or range, and on this disc she does it all, from rather treacly ballads like "Three Little Words" and "Memories of You", which she transforms into something touching, to swing numbers like "I Got Rhythm" and "Second Handed Man", from humor in "I Like The Way He Does It" and "Better Keep an Eye on Your Man" to real heartbreak in "When Your Lover Has Gone", and everything in between. No one else (except possibly Ella Fitzgerald) expressed the sense of joy Waters brings to songs like "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" or "Do I Know What I'm Doing", and no other singer has ever had the combination of rhythm, melodic sense, improvisation and sly humor that make songs like "Second Handed Man" and "I Like the Way He Does It" still delightful, and far more than just double entendre leftovers. Confidence? In "Long, Lean and Lanky Mama", this black woman sings, in the late 1920's, "Blondes, brunettes and redheads, too, Of each I've had, quite a few, And now I want the world to know, I'm looking for a brand new beau...." (!) One can argue about the degree of parody in "Memories of You" or that "Without that Man" is a little too weepy, but with those possible exceptions, the disc is a treasure from start to finish. Of particular note in a disc full of gems are "Second Handed Man", "I Like The Way He Does It", "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" (wondrous), "When Your Lover Has Gone" and "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone". Her version of "I Got Rhythm" is the highlight of a brilliant disc - she shows Merman who's got rhythm, playing with tempos and words with each verse, bending the melody, scatting marvelously, doing a duet with Manny Klein on trumpet and clearly having a ball with a superb band that includes Klein and the Dorsey brothers. Great, great stuff - still a revelation after all these years.