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Sister Rosetta Tharpe

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, born Rosetta Nubin in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, was an American gospel singer and guitarist. As early as the 1940s she played gospel on an electric guitar, with swing and a backbeat. In doing so she laid part of the foundation for rock 'n' roll, and she is sometimes called the Godmother of Rock and Roll.

Music and breakthrough

As a child she was already on stage with her mother, Katie Bell Nubin, an evangelist in the Church of God in Christ. In 1938 she recorded her first records for Decca, including Rock Me. That same year she performed at the Cotton Club in New York, with Cab Calloway among others, and in December at Carnegie Hall, at the concert From Spirituals to Swing. That she sang religious songs in nightclubs went down badly with many believers. In September 1944 she recorded Strange Things Happening Every Day, with the pianist Sammy Price, bass and drums. In the spring of 1945 the record reached number 2 on the Billboard chart for Black music, the first gospel record to be a hit there. In 1951 she married in a baseball stadium in Washington, followed by a concert for a paying audience.

Influence

Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash later named her as an influence. In 1964, on a tour of England, she played at a railway station near Manchester, for young Britons who would later make blues rock themselves. She died in Philadelphia in 1973. In 2018 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence.

Listening

Listening tip. In Strange Things Happening Every Day, listen to the guitar solo halfway through: Tharpe plays no chords but fast, sharp runs on an electric guitar, as Chuck Berry would do ten years later. Beneath it, Sammy Price's piano drives the music forward, so that the gospel song sounds like rhythm and blues.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Mentioned in other articles

See also

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (en): Sister Rosetta Tharpe
  2. blackpast.org
  3. encyclopediaofarkansas.net
  4. Wikipedia (en): Strange Things Happening Every Day
  5. guitarworld.com
  6. laughingsquid.com
Categories: ArtistsSpirituals and gospel