October 22, 1933: Ethel Waters Records "Stormy Weather"

October 22, 1933: Ethel Waters records "Stormy Weather," with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. The song was written by Harold Arlen (1905-1986) and Ted Koehler (1894-1973), and she had sung it at Harlem's famed Cotton Club, at 142nd Street & Lenox Avenue. (Arlen should not be confused with a contemporary, radio announcer Harold Arlin.)

She was born on October 31, 1896, outside Philadelphia in Chester, Pennsylvania. She became one of the top jazz singers of all time. In 1950, ABC made her the 1st black actress to star in a TV series, Beulah. She quit after one season, finding the scripts degrading. For a 1961 guest appearance on Route 66, she became the 1st black person of either gender to be nominated for an Emmy Award in a dramatic role, and the 1st black woman to be nominated for any Emmy. She lived until September 1, 1977.

In 1943, "Stormy Weather" was featured in a film of the same title, sung by Lena Horne, who had first recorded it in 1941. With some irony, also in 1943, Waters and Horne both starred in another mostly-black-cast film, Cabin in the Sky, with Waters playing the honest wife of a troubled man, and Horne playing the femme fatale who tempts him.

Other notable versions have been Billie Holiday in 1955, a doo-wop version by The Spaniels in 1958, and the Red Garland Trio's instrumental version in 1959, familiar to listeners of American Public Media's Marketplace radio show, which plays Garland's version as background accompaniment whenever news of a drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average occurs.

*

October 22, 1933 was a Sunday. Baseball season was over, the NHL season hadn't started yet, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet.

This was the year that Pennsylvania finally legalized professional sports on Sundays, making the newly-formed NFL teams, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Pirates (who would become the Steelers in 1940), a good long-term proposition. These games were played that day:

* The football version of the New York Giants beat the football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers, 21-7 at the Polo Grounds. The football Dodgers went out of business in 1945.

* The Boston Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 10-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. These teams are known today as the Washington Commanders and the Arizona Cardinals, respectively.

* The football versions of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds played to a tie, 0-0 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. The following year, the ballpark was renamed Crosley Field, and these Reds went out of business. These Pirates became the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1940.

* And the Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers, 10-7 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.