When I planned my routines for Oh! Joy! I wanted to make a different kind of entrance than other well-known record singers were using. They were going in for flash and class, one of their favorite entrances being coming out on the stage through the door of an omate phonograph. Just before my first entrance in Oh! Joy! Ethel Williams would go out on the stage. "Where's that partner of mine?" she'd ask the orchestra leader. "Where's that Ethel Waters? What can be keeping her?" And she'd look all over the stage for me, behind the curtain, in the wings, and, for a laugh, under the rug. She'd mutter, "How can I start our act without that gal?" After all that build-up I'd come out--in a funny hat and a gingham apron that was a gem. I was slim, and when Ethel would ask, "Are you Ethel Waters?" I'd answer, "I ain't Bessie Smith." Those two lines would wow the audience. Then I'd sing the plaintive and heartbreaking song, "Georgia Blues." The number told the story of a Southern gal who felt lost and homesick up North. Georgia was home to her, no matter what else it was, and the piece had universal appeal. It was like the cry from the heart of all wanderers everywhere. And on the stage I was the bewildered, little colored girl who couldn't feel at peace and at ease so far off from the scenes of her childhood. Ethel Williams would come on then and dance--and she was always a brilliant performer. The show went over well, and there was talk of bringing it to Broadway. << less