Black Woman of the Day - Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Godmother of Rock and Roll
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe is one of the essential figures in the history of rock and roll.
If she had not been there as a model and inspiration, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and other rock originators would have had different careers. No one deserves more to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Sister Rosetta became famous in 1938 with a record called “Rock Me.” She was a star through the 1940’s, a black woman singing gospel music to the accompaniment of her own driving electric guitar – howling and stamping. Her 1945 recording “Strange Things Happening Every Day” has been credited as the first gospel song to cross over to the “race” (later called “R&B”) charts – reaching Number Two and becoming an early model for rock and roll.
She was a sensation, selling out arenas into the 1950’s. In 1947, Sister Rosetta was the first person to put a 14-year-old boy named Little Richard Penniman on a stage. It changed Little Richard’s life – he decided right then to become a performer.
In 1951, twenty-five thousand fans paid to attend her on-stage wedding at Griffith Stadium in Washington DC. She was the hottest act on stage with a guitar. She became a model for Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Johnny Cash called her his favorite singer and biggest inspiration.
By the early Sixties the musical revolution she inspired had forgotten her – so Sister Rosetta went to England and played electric guitar for the young blues fans of London and Liverpool. Without Sister Rosetta Tharpe, rock and roll would be a different music. She is the founding mother who gave rock’s founding fathers the idea.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
“Rock Me,” “That’s All,” “The Lonesome Road” • (1938) “Shout, Sister, Shout!” • (1942) “Strange Things Happening Every Day” (1945) • “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (1949) • Gospel Train (1956) • Sister On Tour (1961)
If she had not been there as a model and inspiration, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and other rock originators would have had different careers. No one deserves more to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Sister Rosetta became famous in 1938 with a record called “Rock Me.” She was a star through the 1940’s, a black woman singing gospel music to the accompaniment of her own driving electric guitar – howling and stamping. Her 1945 recording “Strange Things Happening Every Day” has been credited as the first gospel song to cross over to the “race” (later called “R&B”) charts – reaching Number Two and becoming an early model for rock and roll.
She was a sensation, selling out arenas into the 1950’s. In 1947, Sister Rosetta was the first person to put a 14-year-old boy named Little Richard Penniman on a stage. It changed Little Richard’s life – he decided right then to become a performer.
In 1951, twenty-five thousand fans paid to attend her on-stage wedding at Griffith Stadium in Washington DC. She was the hottest act on stage with a guitar. She became a model for Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Johnny Cash called her his favorite singer and biggest inspiration.
By the early Sixties the musical revolution she inspired had forgotten her – so Sister Rosetta went to England and played electric guitar for the young blues fans of London and Liverpool. Without Sister Rosetta Tharpe, rock and roll would be a different music. She is the founding mother who gave rock’s founding fathers the idea.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
“Rock Me,” “That’s All,” “The Lonesome Road” • (1938) “Shout, Sister, Shout!” • (1942) “Strange Things Happening Every Day” (1945) • “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (1949) • Gospel Train (1956) • Sister On Tour (1961)
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-...pe-gets-her-day-in-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fame
Sister Rosetta Tharpe Gets Her Day In The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
9:06
BRUCE WARREN
FROM
Sister Rosetta Tharpe onstage with her guitar in 1957.
Chris Ware/Getty Images
Sister Rosetta Tharpe's electric gospel sound was crucial in paving the way for rock and roll, and the late singer and guitarist is finally getting her day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. She joins this a class of inductees that includes big-name rock bands like Bon Jovi, Dire Straits and The Cars.
Rosetta Tharpe was a huge star in her time. Born in a small town in Arkansas in 1915, she was raised in the Pentecostal church. Tharpe honed her musical talent at tent revivals and churches, but found fame after moving to New York City in the 1930s. Her electric sanctified sound was an overnight sensation in the city's nightclubs, and secular audiences fell in love with her ecstatic guitar playing.
Her fame faded by the 1960s as a new generation of musicians began to expand upon her style. She found new audiences in Europe, but otherwise settled into a quiet life in Philadelphia. Tharpe died in 1973 at the age of 58. Although her name fell into the shadows of history for decades, her influence did not.
Elvis Presley, she influenced Johnny Cash, she influenced Little Richard," says Tharpe's biographer Gayle Wald. "She influenced innumerable other people who we recognize as foundational figures in rock and roll."
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is set to be posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame on May 5. Gayle Wald says the musician would be tickled by the honor.
"When people would ask her about her music," Wald says, "she would say, 'Oh, these kids and rock and roll — this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I've been doing that forever.' "
Sister Rosetta Tharpe Gets Her Day In The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
9:06
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BRUCE WARREN
FROM
Sister Rosetta Tharpe onstage with her guitar in 1957.
Chris Ware/Getty Images
Sister Rosetta Tharpe's electric gospel sound was crucial in paving the way for rock and roll, and the late singer and guitarist is finally getting her day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. She joins this a class of inductees that includes big-name rock bands like Bon Jovi, Dire Straits and The Cars.
Rosetta Tharpe was a huge star in her time. Born in a small town in Arkansas in 1915, she was raised in the Pentecostal church. Tharpe honed her musical talent at tent revivals and churches, but found fame after moving to New York City in the 1930s. Her electric sanctified sound was an overnight sensation in the city's nightclubs, and secular audiences fell in love with her ecstatic guitar playing.
Her fame faded by the 1960s as a new generation of musicians began to expand upon her style. She found new audiences in Europe, but otherwise settled into a quiet life in Philadelphia. Tharpe died in 1973 at the age of 58. Although her name fell into the shadows of history for decades, her influence did not.
Elvis Presley, she influenced Johnny Cash, she influenced Little Richard," says Tharpe's biographer Gayle Wald. "She influenced innumerable other people who we recognize as foundational figures in rock and roll."
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is set to be posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame on May 5. Gayle Wald says the musician would be tickled by the honor.
"When people would ask her about her music," Wald says, "she would say, 'Oh, these kids and rock and roll — this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I've been doing that forever.' "
Why Sister Rosetta Tharpe Belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The guitar-playing, gospel-singing sensation paved the way for Elvis, and influenced everyone from Miranda Lambert to Bob Dylan
We look back on the career of guitar-playing, gospel-singing force Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Tony Evans/Getty
Will Hermes
December 13, 2017
More News
Moody Blues' Justin Hayward on Hall of Fame Honor: 'It's Amazing!'Bon Jovi on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "It's a Christmas Miracle"Review: Thinking Twice About Bob Dylan’s Gospel Phase With New Box SetAll Stories
Gripe all you like about deserving acts overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but no artist has been more overdue for recognition than Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose induction into the Hall's "Influences" category was announced this morning. A queer black woman from Arkansas who shredded on electric guitar, belted praises both to God and secular pleasures, and broke the color line touring with white singers, she was gospel's first superstar, and she most assuredly rocked.
Bon Jovi, Dire Straits Lead Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2018 Class
The Moody Blues, the Cars also selected, as well as Sister Rosetta Tharpe as an Early Influence
Tharpe's first hit, in fact, was the transformed spiritual "Rock Me," recorded with her soaring held notes and sexy growls back in 1938 – when the latter-day King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley, was still a toddler. Tharpe would later hire Grand Old Opry stars the Jordanaires to back her, years before they began working for Presley, who was her unabashed fan. "Elvis loved Sister Rosetta," recalled the Jordanaires' Gordon Stoker, especially her "incredible" guitar style. "That's what really attracted Elvis: her pickin'. He liked her singing, but he liked that pickin' first – because it was so different."
Tharpe was an influence on other early rockers, too, including Chuck Berry. Later ones took note as well. "Sister Rosetta Tharpe was anything but ordinary and plain," said Bob Dylan on his Theme Time Radio Hour show. "She was a big, good-lookin woman, and divine, not to mention sublime and splendid. She was a powerful force of nature. A guitar-playin', singin' evangelist." More recently, reigning country queen Miranda Lambert has been opening shows with an iconic clip of Tharpe performing "Up Above My Head."
inRead invented by Teads
A year later, she met the singer Marie Knight. The pair recorded "Up Above My Head," and set out to tour as a self-contained team: Knight sang and played piano; Tharpe sang and played both guitar and piano. They became lovers, an "open secret," according to historian Gayle Wald, author of the essential biography Shout, Sister, Shout! Tharpe's relationship with Knight eventually faded, and in 1951 – over two decades before Sly Stone thought to get hitched in Madison Square Garden – Tharpe got married to her third husband in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. The concert and promotional stunt drew 25,000, many with gifts.
Tharpe's career waned over the next decade. In 1964, as the folk revival was cresting, she was booked for the Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan tour in England, and she played a famous gig in an abandoned railroad station that was broadcast nationwide by Granada television. It was a cold and rainy day, but Tharpe got out of a horse-drawn carriage like royalty, strode across the wet platform, picked up her electric guitar, plugged in, and played "Didn't It Rain," electrical-shock risk apparently be damned, soloing and singing her heart out in front of a crowd of young people. "I'm sure there are a lot of young English guys who picked up electric guitars after getting a look at her," Dylan said.
Tharpe's career didn't get the same bump that male blues musicians did in the late Sixties and Seventies, no doubt in part because of her devotion to religious material. Her last known recording was in 1970, for Danish TV, singing the Thomas Dorsey gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a song Elvis Presley had recorded, among many others. Tharpe died in 1973, in Philadelphia, where she'd been living with her mother in a modest home. The funeral was small; Marie Knight did her makeup and helped select her clothing for burial.
Though her work has been largely forgotten, it's ripe for discovery. And as her induction should testify, the spirit of Sister Rosetta Tharpe is conjured every time a rock musician plugs in and aims for rapture. "When you see Elvis Presley singing early in his career ... imagine he is channeling Sister Rosetta Tharpe," Wald has suggested. "It's not an image I think we're used to thinking about when we think of rock & roll history – we don't think about the black woman behind the young white man."
The guitar-playing, gospel-singing sensation paved the way for Elvis, and influenced everyone from Miranda Lambert to Bob Dylan
We look back on the career of guitar-playing, gospel-singing force Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Tony Evans/Getty
Will Hermes
December 13, 2017
More News
Moody Blues' Justin Hayward on Hall of Fame Honor: 'It's Amazing!'Bon Jovi on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "It's a Christmas Miracle"Review: Thinking Twice About Bob Dylan’s Gospel Phase With New Box SetAll Stories
Gripe all you like about deserving acts overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but no artist has been more overdue for recognition than Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose induction into the Hall's "Influences" category was announced this morning. A queer black woman from Arkansas who shredded on electric guitar, belted praises both to God and secular pleasures, and broke the color line touring with white singers, she was gospel's first superstar, and she most assuredly rocked.
Bon Jovi, Dire Straits Lead Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2018 Class
The Moody Blues, the Cars also selected, as well as Sister Rosetta Tharpe as an Early Influence
Tharpe's first hit, in fact, was the transformed spiritual "Rock Me," recorded with her soaring held notes and sexy growls back in 1938 – when the latter-day King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley, was still a toddler. Tharpe would later hire Grand Old Opry stars the Jordanaires to back her, years before they began working for Presley, who was her unabashed fan. "Elvis loved Sister Rosetta," recalled the Jordanaires' Gordon Stoker, especially her "incredible" guitar style. "That's what really attracted Elvis: her pickin'. He liked her singing, but he liked that pickin' first – because it was so different."
Tharpe was an influence on other early rockers, too, including Chuck Berry. Later ones took note as well. "Sister Rosetta Tharpe was anything but ordinary and plain," said Bob Dylan on his Theme Time Radio Hour show. "She was a big, good-lookin woman, and divine, not to mention sublime and splendid. She was a powerful force of nature. A guitar-playin', singin' evangelist." More recently, reigning country queen Miranda Lambert has been opening shows with an iconic clip of Tharpe performing "Up Above My Head."
inRead invented by Teads
A year later, she met the singer Marie Knight. The pair recorded "Up Above My Head," and set out to tour as a self-contained team: Knight sang and played piano; Tharpe sang and played both guitar and piano. They became lovers, an "open secret," according to historian Gayle Wald, author of the essential biography Shout, Sister, Shout! Tharpe's relationship with Knight eventually faded, and in 1951 – over two decades before Sly Stone thought to get hitched in Madison Square Garden – Tharpe got married to her third husband in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. The concert and promotional stunt drew 25,000, many with gifts.
Tharpe's career waned over the next decade. In 1964, as the folk revival was cresting, she was booked for the Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan tour in England, and she played a famous gig in an abandoned railroad station that was broadcast nationwide by Granada television. It was a cold and rainy day, but Tharpe got out of a horse-drawn carriage like royalty, strode across the wet platform, picked up her electric guitar, plugged in, and played "Didn't It Rain," electrical-shock risk apparently be damned, soloing and singing her heart out in front of a crowd of young people. "I'm sure there are a lot of young English guys who picked up electric guitars after getting a look at her," Dylan said.
Tharpe's career didn't get the same bump that male blues musicians did in the late Sixties and Seventies, no doubt in part because of her devotion to religious material. Her last known recording was in 1970, for Danish TV, singing the Thomas Dorsey gospel standard "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," a song Elvis Presley had recorded, among many others. Tharpe died in 1973, in Philadelphia, where she'd been living with her mother in a modest home. The funeral was small; Marie Knight did her makeup and helped select her clothing for burial.
Though her work has been largely forgotten, it's ripe for discovery. And as her induction should testify, the spirit of Sister Rosetta Tharpe is conjured every time a rock musician plugs in and aims for rapture. "When you see Elvis Presley singing early in his career ... imagine he is channeling Sister Rosetta Tharpe," Wald has suggested. "It's not an image I think we're used to thinking about when we think of rock & roll history – we don't think about the black woman behind the young white man."
she taught Elvis how to play guitar
She was amazing, my pops and grandmother spoke about her when I first started playing. Glad she's finally getting her props
It’s Time to Celebrate the Black Women Who Invented Rock and Roll
Black women like Sister Rosetta Tharpe were doing rock and roll before it had a name, and they deserve to be recognized in the same household way as the men who followed suit.
The First Badass Female Guitarist
She influenced Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and countless others, but Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a legend in her own right.
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