Stormy Weather-A Cotton Club Favorite: Black entertainers were the essential attraction at Harlem's Cotton Club. Both Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway played their own compositions and backed singers and dancers is a fast paced, tightly choreographed format. Ethel Waters, a leading performer had been in Chicago working on Al Capone's nightclub circuit. She wanted to get out of Chicago and, in her own words " Went back to New York glad to be alive." Arlen played his latest song for Waters. She was so impressed that she agreed to sing "Stormy Weather" . Waters said that " I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn't straighten out, the story of wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted." Those feelings were poured into her singing and demeanour. On opening night, the audience made her sing 12 encores.
That song singlehandedly resurrected Water's career and led her to Hollywood as well as dramatic acting roles, notably in " Member of the Wedding " co-starring with Julie Harris on Broadway and later on film.
Later on, Lena Horne became equally identified with the song although she did not display the same degree of anguish that was so present in Ethel Waters performances.
The video you will see offers both Waters and Horne singing the title song . Each singer brought their unique style to the song with Waters more poignant lament contrasted with Horne's more straightforward ballad approach. The song is still popular today even though it has an unusual structure of 36 rather than the conventional 32 bar A-A-B-A format used in most popular songs. When asked about the different length of the piece , Arlen said that it was not planned that way. " I didn't count the measures till it was over. That was all I had to say and the way I had to say it." When George Gershwin mentioned the structure and indicated that Arlen hadn't repeated a phrase in the first eight bars, Arlen replied " I never gave it a thought." That statement alone provides a clue to Arlen's unorthodox approach to song writing. He relied on an unconscious muse that his friend Robert Wachsman described Arlen as " A feeler, not a thinker "when he was composing. He would admittedly become totally immersed, even lost, in the moment of creation.
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lINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97T_lLDONoA
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