Friday, May 30, 2008

Ethel Waters - Greatest Years - 1972

There's plenty written about Ethel Waters written and so I don't think I should even attempt to do her justice with my paltry knowledge. What I will say is that I love her. Finding this record was a real treasure. It is a wonderful collection of her work. This collection was put together in 1972 and contains a great selection of her work. It is a great window into jazz and blues of the late 20's an early 30's.

The first time I ever heard Ethel Waters was on a Women in Blues collection. I contained the song "My Handy Man" which is a pretty sexy song filled with double entendres under the guise of talking about a handy man. Some of the lines are so racy I think it will surprise the uninitiated.

On this record she sings "River, Stay Away From My Door" which is a song Sinatra sang. I grew up listening to the Sinatra version and it was always one of my favorites. While Frank makes the song swing, Ethel gives the song a lot more heart and soul.

This is a two record set and contains 42 songs in addition to the two I've mentioned. They all sound pretty great. I'm sure these have been remastered and released on other CD collections somewhere, but these rips have plenty of flavor and character that give the feeling that probably is a little closer to listening to the original recordings than any remastered CD ever will.

Enjoy!

01 Brother You've Got Me Wrong.m4a
02 Sweet Georgia Brown.m4a
03 Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night.m4a
04 You Can't Do What My Last Man Did.m4a
05 Sweet Man.m4a
06 Shake That Thing.m4a
07 I've Found A New Baby.m4a
08 Sugar, That Sugar Baby O'Mine.m4a
09 Heebie Jeebies.m4a
10 My Special Friend Is Back In Town.m4a
11 Jersey Walk.m4a
12 Lonesome Swallow.m4a
13 Guess Who's In Town.m4a
14 My Handy Man.m4a
15 West End Blues.m4a
16 Organ Grinder Blues.m4a
17 My Baby Sure Knows How To Love.m4a
18 True Blue Lou.m4a
19 Waiting At The End Of The Road.m4a
20 Trav'lin All Alone.m4a
21 Porgy.m4a
22 You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me.m4a
23 Three Little Words.m4a
24 When Your Lover Has Gone.m4a
25 Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone.m4a
26 River, Stay 'Way From My Door.m4a
27 Love Is The Thing.m4a
28 Don't Blame Me.m4a
29 A Hundred Years From Today.m4a
30 I Just Couldn't Take It Baby.m4a
31 Come Up And See Me Sometime.m4a
32 You've Seen Harlem At Its Best.m4a

Here's 4 zip files that contain everything.
Ethel Waters - Part 1.zip
Ethel Waters - Part 2.zip
Ethel Waters - Part 3.zip
Ethel Waters - Part 4.zip

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