Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington - I Can't Give You Anything But Love (1932)

I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby Words by Dorothy Fields, Music by Jimmy McHugh Vocal by Ethel Waters Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra Recorded December 22, 1932 Brunswick 6758 You will note that Ethel Water's second chorus is a note-for-note imitation of the 1929 vocal rendition of Louis Armstrong. Ethel Waters was an early blues singer and later a blues-style pop singer. She was noted for her smooth style, warm voice with distinctive tone and vibrato. She sang in church choirs as a child and won a talent contest at a local theater. Played theaters in Philadelphia and Baltimore and gained the nickname "Sweet Mama Stringbean" because she was tall and thin. In New York City, in the early 1920s, she was a top-billed singer/dancer act in vaudeville, then made several big-selling records for Black Swan, Paramount and Columbia. She also performed in Broadway Musicals "Africana" (1927), "Blackbirds of 1930", and "Rhapsody in Black" (1931). She has recorded with Clarence Williams, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman. Between 1935 and 1939 she headed her own touring show. She was also active as a film actress/singer. In 1949, she was nominated for an Oscar best supporting actress in the film "Pinky", and the next year she won the New York Drama Critics Award for best actress. "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" was written by the prolific song-writing team of Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields for the Broadway musical "Blackbirds of 1928." Blackbirds was the title of a series of musicals with all-black performers, produced and directed by Lew Leslie, a former vaudevillian. The shows were presented from the late 1920s through the 1930s. The most successful of Leslie's productions , Blackbirds of 1928, starred Adelaide Hall and featured Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, whose dancing was a hit with audiences and critics alike. Other famous songs included "Diga Diga Do" and "I Must Have That Man."