Wavy

When most people think of the pioneers of early rock and roll, several familiar names come to mind. Although many artists have been credited with influencing the genre or even recording the first rock-and-roll song, one remarkable performer is often overlooked. Long before rock and roll had a name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was playing an amplified electric guitar in the 1930s and 1940s with a style and energy that would help shape the genre's sound for generations to come.

On occasion, an individual possesses such exceptional talent that conventional labels prove inadequate. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one such artist whose musical gifts were too wide-ranging to fit neatly within a single genre. If her name is not widely recognized, that is not surprising. In many ways, she was erased from music history by two musical worlds.

A Child Prodigy with an Extraordinary Gift

She was a child prodigy who started playing the guitar at age 6. Tharpe developed considerable fame as a musical prodigy, standing out in an era when prominent Black female guitarists were rare. She was so good that she often received the backhanded compliment, “She plays like a man.” Tharpe’s mother was a singer and mandolin player in the Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ. She joined her mother as a regular performer in a traveling evangelical group and was billed as a “singing and guitar-playing miracle.” Based in Chicago, Rosetta and her mother sang and played at religious concerts at their local church and occasionally traveled to perform at church conventions.

When Gospel Met the Blues

Tharpe’s distinct performance style, featuring heavy distortion, showmanship, and rhythmic, pounding guitar solos, earned her skill and reputation as she performed on the church circuit. Before long, blues and race record producers heard her play. At 23, Tharpe recorded for the first time with Decca Records. Her recordings were Decca’s first gospel recordings. The label had artists such as Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, the Andrews Sisters, and the Mills Brothers. Her first four recordings were instant hits, and she became an overnight success and one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists. She blended genres, mixing holy gospel with raw blues. Her sound reached beyond the religious audience, and secular artists took notice of her talent. One who took notice was swing and R&B bandleader Lucky Millinder. He signed her to a 10-year contract, and she toured with his band throughout the 1940s.

Watch her perform, and you'll immediately hear why so many rock legends cited her as an influence.

Too Gospel for the World, Too Worldly for the Church

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. The response from the conservative C.O.G.I.C. denomination was predictable, and she was accused of playing and recording “the devil’s music,” as church leaders called it. Tharpe's appearances with Cab Calloway at Harlem's Cotton Club in October 1938 and at John Hammond's "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall on December 23, 1938, brought her more fame, along with notoriety. Performing gospel music for secular nightclub audiences and alongside blues and jazz musicians and dancers was unusual, and in conservative religious circles, a woman playing the guitar in such settings was frowned upon. Tharpe fell out of favor with segments of the gospel community. Her nightclub performances, in which she would sometimes sing gospel songs amid scantily clad showgirls, caused her to be shunned by some in the gospel community. She had some success in the secular world, but she considered going back to singing strictly gospel. But she had contractual commitments that prevented her from doing so. She moved through nightclubs, concert halls, and with big bands.

A Gospel Song That Helped Launch Rock and Roll

She recorded her song "Strange Things Happening Every Day" in 1944 with Sammy Price, who played piano for Decca. The song showed off her skill on the guitar and her clever lyrics. It was the first gospel song to make it onto Billboard magazine's Harlem Hit Parade, and some people have called it the first rock-and-roll record. Her reputation as a guitarist soon spread, and musicians came to hear her and then copied her style. At the beginning of the 1950s, she and her musical partner, Marie Knight, saw their popularity take a sudden downturn as she was eclipsed by Mahalia Jackson in the gospel field.

The Godmother of Rock and Roll

Her groundbreaking sound in the 1930s and 1940s directly influenced the early architects of rock, notably Little Richard, who said Rosetta Tharpe was his favorite singer as a boy. Chuck Berry acknowledged her pioneering guitar work and recognized her role in shaping rock and roll. Elvis Presley mentioned that he admired her gospel performances and was influenced by the blend of gospel and rhythm and blues that characterized her music. Jerry Lee Lewis, the piano pioneer and early rock icon, also took in her high-energy performance style and her fusion of sacred and secular sounds, and Carl Perkins, the "Blue Suede Shoes" singer, adopted her driving, rockabilly-style rhythm-and-blues guitar techniques. Yet she played in relative obscurity for years until the British blues scene of the 1960s discovered her. She influenced many British rock legends, including Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards. Her tour of Europe was a big success, reviving her career and reputation. She crossed the line from sacred to secular, yet still clung to her unique style of gospel music. She was the forerunner of subsequent gospel and secular artists who walked the fine line between religious and "worldly" music.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, often called the "Godmother of Rock and Roll," playing her Gibson SG in England in 1964.

Forgotten by Two Musical Worlds

Still, church history tried to eliminate her influence. Religious leaders criticized her for working with secular entertainers and music. There were also rumors about her musical partner, Marie Knight. The two were musical collaborators, close friends, and important figures in the gospel scene of the 1940s and 1950s. For years, people speculated that they might have been romantic partners. Early rock historians erased her as well, mainly because of racial and gender biases. It is one of the great ironies of American music. Gospel circles criticized her for sounding too worldly, while rock historians often overlooked her because she was a Black woman whose music was rooted in gospel. For decades, neither world fully claimed her.

Yet, thanks in part to YouTube clips of her performances and to rock and religious historians finally giving her credit, she is becoming known to a new generation. In 2018, she was officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence.

Had you heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe before reading this article? Which rock artist do you think was influenced by her the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below.