Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973) was a dynamic gospel singer known for her guitar skills. She is considered the “Godmother of Rock and Roll.”
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s musician was a dynamic gospel singer known for her guitar skills. She is considered the “Godmother of Rock and Roll.” Meet Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Rosetta Nubin was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas in 1915. She grew up in a musical family. Her parents picked cotton to make a living, but they sang and played guitar outside of work. Rosetta’s mother Katie worked as the women’s speaker for the Church of God in Christ and encouraged her daughter’s musical expression. At the age of four, Rosetta was already considered a musical prodigy.
In the 1920s, Rosetta and her mother relocated to Chicago, where they jointly performed in national church conventions. Rosetta’s unique vibrato and guitar style stunned audiences, and she quickly made a name for herself as a young gospel singer.
In 1934, at age 19, Rosetta married Thomas Thorpe, a preacher. He supported her musical ambitions, and she used his last name to form the stage name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In 1938, Sister Rosetta left Thomas and moved to New York City.
Sister Rosetta landed her first big break when she signed with Decca Records in 1938. She became an overnight success and recorded a number of mainstream hits, including “Rock Me,” which blended blues and gospel tones.
Throughout the 1940s, Sister Rosetta collaborated with a number of bands and musicians. Though she gained international recognition, she dealt with the challenges of institutional racism and discrimination. On tour, she slept on buses because restaurants and hotels were segregated. And she grappled with life as a young Black woman in an industry that was dominated by white men.
During WWII, Sister Rosetta was one of two gospel performers to record V-Discs, which were sent to encourage those fighting on the front lines. She developed a large fanbase in the military. In 1945, Rosetta’s song, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” became the first gospel single to cross over on the Billboard R&B top 10 charts. Some consider it the first Rock & Roll song.
In 1946, Sister Rosetta met fellow gospel singer, Marie Knight. They toured together, drawing in massive crowds, and recorded the smash hit “Up Above My Head.” Biographer Gayle Wald wrote that Marie and Sister Rosetta became lovers, which was “an open secret.”
During a time when it was uncommon to achieve success as a Black woman guitarist, Sister Rosetta stood out for her soulful voice and her skillful guitar technique. She experimented with finger picking and distortion on the electric guitar. Bob Dylan once said, “I’m sure there are a lot of young English guys who picked up electric guitars after getting a look at her.” Her songs inspired the work of influential musicians like Elvis and Johnny Cash. She brought Little Richard up on stage once, giving him his first performance in front of a secular audience. Chuck Berry once called his entire career “just one long Rosetta Tharpe impersonation.”
Audiences sometimes struggled to understand the way Rosetta mixed her gospel lyrics with secular tunes. She often enjoyed playing gospel songs in nightclubs, in front of showgirls, reveling in the juxtaposition. Her trailblazing and visionary techniques are what allowed her to create a new genre of music. Still it sometimes cost her financial success, as church audiences didn’t like her secularism and secular audiences didn’t like her gospel songs.
But Sister Rosetta was also a good businesswoman, who early on understood the importance of merchandising and publicity. She regularly sent updates about herself to the Black press, and in 1951 she turned her marriage to her manager, Russell Morrison, into a concert. They wed at the Washington Senators baseball stadium in front of 20,000 paying customers and recorded a concert, which was released as an album.
In 1956, Sister Rosetta recorded the album, Gospel Trail with The Harmonizing Four, a gospel quartet. She went on to tour in the UK and built a European following. In 1964, Sister Rosetta pulled up on a horse-drawn carriage and famously sang the song, “Didn’t It Rain,” at an abandoned train station in Manchester, England. As the band performed on one side of the platform, audiences listened in awe on the other side. During her third UK visit, headlines read “Beatle Boosters Defect: Bristolites Dig Blues Singer Sister Tharpe”.
Sister Rosetta continued to tour in Europe. She performed alongside famed musicians including Muddy Waters and Otis Spann. In 1960, Sister Rosetta performed at the Apollo Theater with Caravan and James Cleveland.
In 1970, Sister Rosetta eulogized her mother with the song “Precious Lord.” It became her last known recording. Three years later, in 1973, Sister Rosetta died from a stroke.
Though she was not inducted into the Rock & Roll hall of Fame until 2018, the induction essay noted: “Without the sort of emotional expressiveness that she and others brought from Black churches into the musical mainstream, it’s doubtful that rock & roll would have attained the affective force of a secular religion. Without Tharpe, a woman who thrived on thrilling audiences with her guitar pyrotechnics, it’s open for debate whether rock’s archetypal instrument would have become so indelibly associated with the sensual, the sensational, and the sublime.”
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