ETHEL WATERS - WAITING AT THE END OF THE ROAD

WAITING AT THE END OF THE ROAD

ETHEL WATERS

SONGWRITERS: IRVING BERLIN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: ETHEL WATES 100 SUPER BEST

LABEL: COLUMBIA RECORDS

GENRE: JAZZ

YEAR: 1929

 

              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. Waters 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. She was 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 state her birth year as 1900) as a result of the rape of her teenaged African-American mother, Louise Anderson (1881–1962) by John Waters, (1878–1901), a pianist and family acquaintance from a middle-class African-American background. Waters' family was very fair skinned, her mother in particular. Many sources, including Ethel herself, have 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 she may have been in her late teens.

          Waters played no role in raising Ethel. Soon after she was born, her mother married Norman Howard, a railroad worker. Ethel used the surname Howard as a child and then reverted to her father's name. She was raised in poverty by Sally Anderson, her grandmother, who worked as a housemaid, and with two of her aunts and an uncle. Waters never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. Of her difficult childhood, she said "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."

           Waters grew tall, standing 5 feet 9.5 inches (1.765 m) in her teens. According to jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters's birth in the North and her peripatetic life exposed her to many cultures. Waters married at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, and she soon left the marriage and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She recalled that she earned the rich sum of $10 per week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.

Weary of roamin' on,

Yearning to see the dawn,

Counting the hours till I can lay down my load.

Weary, but I don't mind,

Knowing that I'll soon find

Peace and contentment at the end of the road.

 

The way is long, the night is dark,

But I don't mind 'cause a happy lark

Will be singing at the end of the road.

I can't go wrong, I must go right,

I'll find my way 'cause a guiding light

Will be shining at the end of the road.

 

There may be thorns in my path, but I'll wear a smile,

For in a little while my path will be roses!

 

The rain may fall from up above,

But I won't stop 'cause the one I love

Will be waiting at the end of the road.

 

Say, the way may be long and the night is dark,

But I don't mind 'cause a happy lark

Will be singing at the end of the road;

And I can't go wrong, I must go right,

I'll find my way 'cause a guiding light

Will be shining at the end of the road.

 

There may be thorns in my path, but I'll wear a smile,

For in a little while my path will be roses!

 

And the rain may fall from up above,

But I won't stop 'cause the one I love

Will be waiting at the end of the road.