[Dixielandjazz] Ethel Waters biography reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

"Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters." Bogle, Donald. Harper: HarperCollins.
Feb. 2011. c.624p. photogs. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780061241734. $26.99.
by John Frank
Library Journal, January 1, 2011

Preeminent African American popular culture historian Bogle, noted for his groundbreaking
"Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in
American Films" as well as an acclaimed biography of Dorothy Dandridge, has produced
an exemplary biography of pioneering Broadway, film, recording, and television star
Ethel Waters (1896-1977). As a singer Waters introduced such standards as "Am I Blue,"
"Stormy Weather," and "Heat Wave." She was the first African American to be billed
above the title in a Broadway show. With a noteworthy later role in Carson McCullers's
stage adaptation of "The Member of the Wedding," her Oscar-nominated turn in Elia
Kazan's "Pinky," and frequent appearances on the Billy Graham crusades, her work
spanned 20th-century entertainment from tent shows to television. Bogle does not
shy away from a frank discussion of Waters's bisexuality and her legendary temper
born of a lifetime of slights.
Verdict: Bogle masterfully uses Waters's story to examine the economic, aesthetic,
and racial politics of 1920s-60s popular culture. This work is everything a biography
should be.


--Bob Ringwald
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In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. 
Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.