Sister Rosetta Tharpe

                           Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973, a pioneering gospel singer and guitar player from Arkansas, among the 2018 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was born in the Woodruff County town of Cotton Plant and achieved fame in the 1930s.

Rock 'n' roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock 'n' roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation.

Tharpe was always surrounded by music growing up. Born Rosetta Nubin in Arkansas to Willis Atkins and Katie Bell, Tharpe came from a family of religious singers, cotton pickers and traditional evangelists.Encouraged by her mother, Tharpe began singing and playing the guitar as Little Rosetta Nubin at the age of four and was cited as a musical prodigy.

In the mid-1920s, Tharpe and her mother settled in Chicago, Illinois, where they performed religious concerts at the COGIC church on 40th Street, occasionally traveling to perform at church conventions throughout the country. Tharpe developed considerable fame as a musical prodigy, standing out in an era when prominent black female guitarists were rare. In 1934, at age 19, she married Thomas Thorpe, a COGIC preacher, who accompanied her and her mother on many of their tours. The marriage lasted only a few years, but she decided to adopt a version of her husband's surname as her stage name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

         Sister Rosetta Tharpe-Documentary 


In 1938, she left her husband and moved with her mother to New York City. Although she married several times, she performed as Rosetta Tharpe for the rest of her life. As Tharpe grew up, she began fusing Delta blues, New Orleans jazz and gospel music into what would become her signature style.

On October 31, 1938, aged 23, Tharpe recorded for the first time – four sides for Decca Records, backed by Lucky Millinder's jazz orchestra. The first gospel songs ever recorded by Decca, "Rock Me," "That's All," "My Man and I" and "The Lonesome Road" were instant hits, establishing Tharpe as an overnight sensation and one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists. "Rock Me" influenced many rock-and-roll singers, such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. She had signed a seven-year contract with Reminder and was managed by Mo Galye. Her records caused an immediate furor: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of gospel-based lyrics and secular-sounding music, but secular audiences loved them. She played on several occasions with the white singing group the Jordanaires.

She was the first great recording star of gospel music and among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll". She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians, including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Her guitar playing technique had a profound influence on the development of British blues in the 1960s; in particular a European tour with Muddy Waters in 1963 with a stop in Manchester is cited by prominent British guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards.Tharpe pushed spiritual music into the mainstream and helped pioneer the rise of pop-gospel, beginning in 1938 with the recording "Rock Me" and with her 1939 hit "This Train". Her unique music left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists such as Ira Tucker, Sr., of the Dixie Hummingbirds. While she offended some conservative churchgoers with her forays into the pop world, she never left gospel music.

Information sources:
www.allmusic.com/artist/sister-rosetta-tharpe-mn0000013511
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Rosetta_Tharpe
www.pbs.org/black-culture/shows/list/rock-and-roll-rosetta-tharpe/
www.npr.org/2017/08/24/544226085/forebears-sister-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-rock-n-roll

   Lucky Millinder--Shout Sister Shout with Sister Rosetta Sharpe.wmv


          Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train


      Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Up Above My Head