Rock 'n' roll is associated with rebellion and nonconformity, as well as political activism and changes in social attitudes. An almost automatic image linked to the genre includes drums, bass, guitar, dark-coloured clothes, and sometimes makeup, often portrayed on white bodies. However, it may not be widely known that this image was manipulated.
Most Black songwriters of those eras barely made a profit out of it, while white musicians found radio airtime, fame, money, and notoriety for generations using the exact same songs. Many Black creators died penniless and nameless, without receiving any credit for the music they brought to the world over the years through mainstream channels. Future generations view Black artists as remarkable, as they unconsciously foreshadowed future developments. However, it is widely unknown that the genre is rooted in the Black community and became whitewashed over the years.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who today marks the fiftieth anniversary of her passing, played a pivotal role in the early days of rock 'n' roll. She remains an iconic figure in intersectionality, having pioneered the beloved genre and paving the way for many other renowned artists such as Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, and Chuck Berry. The initial sounds of rock 'n' roll were a fusion of influences from Tharpe's childhood, including gospel, jazz, and blues. She is credited as the originator of pop gospel and a populariser of the electric guitar. These achievements have rightfully earned her the title of the godmother of rock 'n' roll.
The daughter of Arkansas cotton pickers, Katie Bell Nubin and Willis Atkins, she was born in 1915. Both of her parents were passionate about music; her father would sing in his spare time. She grew up in the Church of God in Christ, where her mother served as a preacher. Religious worship through musical expression played a central role, fostering Tharpe's musicality from an early age. Rosetta Nubin began learning music, singing, and playing the guitar at churches and revivals by the age of 4. She was described as a music prodigy. By the age of 6, she had moved north to Chicago and was already touring with her mother as a regular performer in a traveling evangelical troupe across the United States.
During her adolescence, Rosetta was married to a preacher, but she soon left, heading to New York City, where she played with Duke Ellington and other top musicians. She worked for a few years with swing bandleader Lucky Millinder, who led an orchestra from the mid-1920s to the mid-'50s and served as a breeding ground for many future stars of jazz and blues. She toured the South with fellow gospel icons, the Dixie Hummingbirds. In her twenties, she began to listen to the first recordings of blues queens such as Ma Rainey and the trio of Smiths—Bessie, Trixie, and Mamie—an era when blues was dominated by female artists, shortly before the first Delta or country blues recordings were made.
In 1938, she recorded her first pieces of music with the backing of Lucky Millinder’s jazz orchestra, which led to her change of stage name to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She recorded four successful Gospel tracks for Decca Records, marking the label’s first Gospel recordings. During this time, she released her first electric guitar hit, "Rock Me" by Thomas Dorsey, followed by "That’s All." She performed as a solo artist and occasionally collaborated with groups. The audience was quickly captivated by her guitar talent, and she brought gospel music to mainstream popularity wherever she performed.
During World War II, she continued to work, record, and tour. She was a frequent performer at the Apollo Theater in New York. Her first rock 'n' roll record was "Strange Things Happening Every Day" with Sammy Price in 1944, showcasing her guitar skills. Additionally, it was the first gospel song to chart on Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade (now R&B chart). Some of her other recordings, such as "This Train," "Trouble in Mind," "Shout Sister Shout," "Nobody’s Fault But Mine," and "Strange Things Happening Every Day," are now recognized as groundbreaking and influential during those proto-rock 'n' roll days.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe toured and had a relationship with Marie Knight, who was another famous gospel singer for many years. Knight sang and played the piano, while Tharpe did both and played the guitar. Together, they recorded "Up Above My Head." Their relationship was an open secret; Tharpe was married three times. She continued to perform in nightclubs and on tour, but the hit records had dried up. The 1957 tour was a huge success and firmly placed Rosetta back on top. She even toured the UK in 1958.
In the 1960s, she toured Europe as part of the Blues and Gospel Caravan alongside Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Rev. Gary Davis, and Mississippi John Hurt. During this time, her most famous video was recorded in Manchester and was broadcast nationwide by Granada Television in 1964. Despite the rainy and cold weather, she fearlessly played and sang "Didn't It Rain," even under the risk of electrical shock. In the same year, she was booked for the Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan tour in England, coinciding with the folk revival. She became a trailblazer once again and was one of the first artists to bring those sounds across the Atlantic. In subsequent years, she was joined by Muddy Waters and other American blues giants for package tours.
However, the rise of male and white rock singers and musicians who appealed to the mainstream, coupled with her recording of religious material, caused her popularity to wane, and her career began to decline rapidly. Additionally, her career didn't experience the same resurgence as some of her male blues musician counterparts in the late sixties and early seventies.
Sadly, in 1973, she passed away from a stroke in Philadelphia. She had been living there with her mother in a modest home after her leg was amputated as a result of complications related to diabetes.
It is worth mentioning that she was buried without a headstone for 30 years and wasn't inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame until 2018. It wasn't until 2008 that Tharpe finally had a gravestone to mark her resting place. By that time, at least, there was growing interest in her life and work. Even a documentary with her as a central figure, titled The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Mick Csaky, 2011), which was released in 2011.
Her trajectory remains relatively obscure, even though she was a significant influence and played a key role in shaping the careers of many respected figures in the genre, including its foundational artists. The electric guitar was played in innovative ways by a woman who, despite not being allowed to perform at many music venues around the country, pushed boundaries that few could have imagined. However, she was honoured and briefly mentioned in the film Elvis(Baz Luhrmann, 2022). In one scene, a young Presley is in a late-night club on Beale Street, Memphis, where he is captivated by the voice of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Yola), blending gospel and blues into an intoxicating musical experience that Elvis himself, along with millions of others, found utterly mesmerizing.
Rosetta's achievements should be more recognized and honoured rather than easily forgotten, especially as she was a talented intersectionality icon in a repressed era for women, Blacks and LGBT+ community. Her legacy should be more celebrated, considering that rock music has many subgenres and remains popular, even shaping cultural tribes in society. Additionally, her influence on the music scene extended to countless respected names in the genre who are way more popular than her.
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