Forgotten Women Friday #47
Sister Rosetta Tharpe- 1915- 1973- United States
“The Godmother of Rock & Roll”
Sure, Chuck Berry is the “Father of Rock and Roll.” But what most people don’t know is that rock and roll also has a godmother– Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Tharpe was likely born as Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas in 1915 to parents who were both cotton pickers. Her mother, Katie Bell Nubin, was also a singer and preacher through her church, the Church of God in Christ. It was here that Rosetta found her voice and picked up a guitar for the first time when she was 4 years-old. Rosetta’s mother immediately saw the raw talent possessed by her daughter, and the two began traveling in an evangelical troupe where Rosetta was billed as a “singing and guitar playing miracle.” In an era when black female guitar players were few and far between, Rosetta quickly became known as a prodigy. At age 19, Rosetta married Thomas Thorpe, a preacher, and although the marriage only lasted a few years, Rosetta went on to use a variant of his surname in her stage name– Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
After divorcing her first husband when she was 23 years-old, Rosetta moved in with her mother in New York City, and it was here that she recorded songs for the first time. These singles, “Rock Me,“ "That’s All,” “My Man and I” and “The Lonesome Road,” were instant hits, catapulting Rosetta to overnight fame. She quickly became one of the first commercially successful gospel artists, and her song “Rock Me” influenced singers like Elvis Presley and Little Richard. Her guitar style was unique in that it combined urban blues and traditional folk, and the pulsating swing sound she pioneered would become an important precursor to rock music. Rosetta’s live performances, such as her appearance at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club in 1938, were also revolutionary for the time. Not only was she performing gospel music in secular jazz clubs alongside scantily-clad dancers, but both her gender and race defied norms for guitarists at the time. Rosetta, an openly queer woman within the industry but private in public, expressed her views on sexuality in her lyrics and performed with all white bands during a time of segregation. Rosetta continued to record during World War II, and her 1944 single “Strange Things Happening Every Day” is credited by some as being the first rock and roll record. During this time, Sister Tharpe began a relationship with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and the two toured and performed together as two black queer women. However, in 1951, Rosetta married her third husband in front of 25,000 paying customers at a stadium in Washington DC.
As white men began to get more and more famous in the rock and roll scene, the demand for Rosetta died down. However, she continued to perform until 1970 when she had a stroke and had to have a leg amputated afterwards as a complication from diabetes. She died three years later in 1973 from a second stroke and was buried in Philadelphia. In 2007, she was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 2017, Rosetta was finally elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an “Early Influence” due to her status as the Godmother of Rock and Roll. She heavily influenced numerous artists, including Little Richard and Johnny Cash, both of whom said she was their favorite artist when they were children. Black female artists such as Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin also credited Tharpe with being an important early influence for them. Although her life was relatively short, Rosetta broke barriers by aggressively playing guitar, fusing the religious with the secular, and being unafraid to love openly. As NPR put it, “Rock ‘n’ roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”
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