Waters was natural around Chester, Pennsylvania, the daughter of the twelve-season old mother world health organization got been raped, and was raised around the violent, impoverished Philadelphia ward.

Waters found her 1st Harlem club job as much as 1919 at Edmond's Cellar, the average club of the cycle & locality patroned by a nigrify audience. Along by using Fletcher Henderson and sponsored under Black Swan Records, she toured with a Black Swan Dance Masters. She stated that Henderson tended to perform within a further definitive style than she would like, typically lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass". Based on datthe from Waters, she influenced him to practice inside a "real jazz" style. She was late recorded by Columbia Records within 1925; this recording was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. In a period of a Twenties, she performed and/or was recorded by owning the ensembles of Will Marion Cook, Lovie Austin, Fletcher Henderson

When her career continued, she evolved toward existence the pop & broadway singer performing using creative person such as Duke Ellington. She was nominated for the Better Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1949 for the film "Pinky". Around 1950, she won the Just released York Drama Critics Award. inside the period prior to her dying at age Eighty in Los Angeles, California, she toured with a Revolutions per minute. Billy Graham, despite the fact that she was the Catholic.

She was posthumously recognized within 1984 per Gospel Music Association where her name was set around its Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Family ties

She is as well a auntie of Dance artist Crystal Waters

Awards and recognitions

Academy Award, Best Supporting Actress nomination within 1949 Gospel Music Hall of Fame, 1984 Grammy Hall of Fame Award, 1998

She was too inside Cabin in the Sky