In the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer talks about Ethel Waters’ subversive 1932 cover of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
This article is taken from the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine:
“Ethel Waters was one of the first Black women to embrace white musical traditions like operetta and vaudeville while keeping a grounding in blues. The main thing about this song from 1932 is its fearlessness. Three years earlier, Louis Armstrong did a groundbreaking recording of it – but Ethel always wanted to top her predecessor. She would incorporate perfect mimicry of her peers in her songs, so you would get a form of criticism along with these enchanting performances. In the first chorus, where her voice is high and light, she is being read as a charming white heroine. In the second chorus, she lowers her voice and sings in drag as Louis Armstrong. So at a time when race-mixing was verboten, you’ve got what seems to be a white woman singing with quite a rakish Black man. It’s a little social, theatrical comedy. Ethel had lesbian relationships, so you can also read this song as being played by a femme and a butch. She showed what could be laughed at and what you could be thrilled by.”
Chicago-born writer Margo Jefferson has been diligently dissecting books, music and popular culture for the past half-century, winning the Pulitzer prize for her criticism in 1995. More recently she has been celebrated for her memoirs – 2015’s acclaimed Negroland is being followed this spring by Constructing a Nervous System. Her analysis is known for its precision and breadth: Jefferson will often dust off cultural artefacts and situate them in wider racial and sociopolitical contexts – in this instance, a recording of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love by the visionary queer Black jazz singer Ethel Waters, which she identifies as decades ahead of its time.
This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale here.
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