Beyond the Weary-Bluesy Mammy

Abstract

By the 1930s, Tin Pan Alley’s diluted blues became the sad torch song of the weary-bluesy mammy, a type Ethel Waters was repeatedly called upon to voice. This character type existed in contrast to the Broadway blues mama persona that Zora Neale Hurston envisioned for Waters, and roles taken up by less-studied Black Broadway divas of the time, Juanita Hall and Pearl Bailey. Hall negotiated a path from the concert stage to the nightclub and, via vocal acts in “high yellowface,” convinced listeners to hear her voice as representative of Vietnam or Chinatown. Bailey also leveraged character roles to maneuver around the vocal type of the weary-bluesy mammy, teaching audiences to, as she put it, “listen better.” Where the book’s initial chapter traced lessons in how and what to sing, this second chapter collects a series of coachings in how to listen around the edges of racialized expectations for voice.