{"id":56599,"date":"2020-02-28T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T18:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=56599"},"modified":"2023-09-27T11:41:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T15:41:37","slug":"black-history-month-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-rock-n-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/black-history-month-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-rock-n-roll.html","title":{"rendered":"Black History Month: Rosetta Tharpe, the Godmother of Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, to help celebrate Black History Month, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to learn more about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the \u201cGodmother of Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll.\u201d Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What do Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis have in common? They were all influenced by a gospel-singing, electric guitar-playing African American woman named Sister Rosetta Tharpe.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably seen the viral video of Rosetta performing<\/a> outside in the rain at an English train station, playing her electric guitar as she sings the appropriately named \u201cDidn\u2019t It Rain\u201d for a live audience. The 49-year-old woman behind the electric guitar appears to be an unlikely rock and roll star, but in reality she was one of the early influences of the genre and so much more. In fact, even Chuck Berry said of his career that it was \u201cjust one long Rosetta Tharpe impersonation.\u201d (1)<\/p>\n

Queen of Gospel, Godmother of Rock and Roll<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born 20 March 1915 in Cotton Park, Arkansas, Rosetta\u2019s mother Katie Bell was a Pentecostal singer and preacher. At the age of 4 Rosetta was playing the acoustic guitar in church, and by age 6 was traveling with her mother performing for churches, combining sermons with gospel music. (2) Later, after her short marriage to minister Thomas Thorpe, she adapted his surname and used the name Rosetta Tharpe as her stage name.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Phoenix Index (Phoenix, Arizona), 18 October 1941, page 8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eventually trading in her acoustic for an electric guitar, Rosetta\u2019s career went from the church to the jazz club. Her version of gospel music, played to secular audiences in jazz clubs \u2013 as well as decidedly ungospel-like songs \u2013 made her unpopular with her gospel audience, who frowned upon the songs she sang and how she performed. However, they quickly reembraced her when she later returned to her gospel roots. (3)<\/p>\n

Rosetta wasn\u2019t just popular on tour; a publicity stunt resulted in thousands of people paying admission to her 1951 combination wedding and concert. This newspaper article detailing her wedding reported:<\/p>\n

\u201cImmediately following the wedding ceremonies, Sister Tharpe and Madam [Marie] Knight, the two \u2018First Ladies\u2019 of spiritual music, presented a thrilling concert\u2026 In keeping with the spirit of the July 4, the affair ended with an elaborate display of fireworks including cupid\u2019s heart pierced with arrows designed especially for the bride and groom.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Plaindealer (Kansas City, Kansas), 13 July 1951, page 5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout the 1940s, Rosetta toured with both black and white male Gospel quartets, challenging racial and societal conventions. Her celebrity remained strong, and Rosetta recorded the first Gospel R&B billboard top-10 hit, \u201cStrange Things Happening Everyday,\u201d in 1945. Her popularity in the United States waned in the late 1950s; as what was popular evolved, she was slowly replaced by the very artists she influenced. However, she found a new popularity in a tour of Great Britain in 1964. (4)<\/p>\n

After Her Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosetta Tharpe died on 9 October 1973 in Philadelphia at the young age of 58. Her obituary sang her accolades as the \u201cQueen of Gospel,\u201d including that she was the first gospel singer to appear at Carnegie Hall. Her music career included playing with such famous jazz greats as Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. In her half-century career, she recorded 5,000 records on the Decca, Mercury, and Savoy labels.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Seattle Daily Times<\/a> (Seattle, Washington), 11 October 1973, page 28<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rosetta was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas, Nevada), 15 April 2018, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview with NPR, Tharpe\u2019s biographer Gayle Wald remarked that when asked about the younger generation\u2019s rock and roll music, Tharpe would reply:<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, these kids and rock and roll \u2013 this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I\u2019ve been doing that forever.\u201d (5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wald\u2019s book about Tharpe is called Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe\u00a0<\/em>(Beacon Press,\u00a02007). You can watch documentaries and videos of Rosetta performing on YouTube.<\/p>\n

______________<\/p>\n

(1) \u201cShe Can Make That Guitar Talk,\u201d NPR (https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/09\/24\/759600717\/she-can-make-that-guitar-talk<\/a>: accessed 18 February 2020).
\n(2) \u201cSister Rosetta Tahrpe,\u201d Wikipedia (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sister_Rosetta_Tharpe<\/a>: accessed 17 February 2020).
\n(3) \u201cFeatured Composer May 2019: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973),\u201d Carolina Music Museum (https:\/\/carolinamusicmuseum.org\/featured-composer-may-2019-sister-rosetta-tharpe-1915-1973\/<\/span>: accessed 17 Febraury 2020).
\n(4) Ibid.
\n(5) \u201cSister Rosetta Tharpe Gets Her Day In The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame,\u201d NPR (https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/world-cafe\/2018\/04\/12\/601808069\/sister-rosetta-tharpe-gets-her-day-in-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fame<\/a>: accessed 17 February 2020).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to learn more about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the \u201cGodmother of Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":56625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12323],"tags":[20527,24235,51585],"class_list":["post-56599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-american-history-genealogy","tag-african-american-history-and-genealogy","tag-music-and-musicians","tag-sister-rosetta-tharpe"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/photo-0228-2020-featured-graphic-rosetta-tharpe.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56599"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94921,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56599\/revisions\/94921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}