Sister Rosetta Tharpe
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| Rosetta Tharpe | |
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| Image:Sisterr.jpg "Sister" Rosetta Tharpe
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Rosetta Nubin |
| Born | March 20 1915 |
| Origin | Cotton Plant, Arkansas |
| Died | October 9 1973 (aged 58) |
| Genre(s) | Gospel, pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was a pioneering Gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock accompaniment. She became the first great recording star of Gospel music, first surfacing on the pop charts with her 1938 original composition "This Train".
Willing to cross the line between sacred and secular by performing her inspirational music of 'light' in the 'darkness' of the nightclubs and concert halls with big bands behind her, her witty, idiosyncratic style also left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists, such as Ira Tucker, Sr., of the Dixie Hummingbirds. While she offended some conservative churchgoers with her forays into the world of pop music, she never left gospel music.
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[edit] Her career
Born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began performing at age four, billed as "Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar playing miracle", accompanying her mother, Church of God in Christ (COGIC) evangelist Katie Bell Nubin, who played mandolin and preached at tent revivals throughout the South. Exposed to both blues and jazz both in the South and after her family moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, she played blues and jazz in private, while performing gospel music in public settings. Her unique style reflected those secular influences: she bent notes the way that jazz artists did and picked guitar like Memphis Minnie.
Rosetta also crossed over to secular music in other ways. After marrying COGIC preacher Thomas Thorpe (from which "Tharpe" is a misspelling) in 1934 and moving to New York City, she recorded four sides with Decca Records backed by "Lucky" Millinder's jazz orchestra. Her records caused an immediate furor: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of sacred and secular music, but secular audiences loved them. Appearances in John Hammond's 1938 extravaganza "From Spirituals To Swing", at the Cotton Club and Café Society and with Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman made her even more popular. Songs like "This Train" and "Rock Me", which combined gospel themes with bouncy up-tempo arrangements, became smash hits among audiences with little previous exposure to gospel music.
Tharpe continued recording during World War II, one of only two gospel artists able to record V-discs for troops overseas. Her song "Strange Things Happening Every Day", recorded in 1944 with Sammy Price, Decca's house boogie woogie pianist, showcased her virtuosity as a guitarist and her witty lyrics and delivery. It was also the first gospel song to make Billboard's "race records" Top Ten--something that Sister Rosetta Tharpe accomplished several more times in her career.
After the war Decca paired her with Marie Knight, a Sanctified shouter with a strong contralto and a more subdued style than Tharpe. Their hit "Up Above My Head" showed both of them to great advantage: Knight provided the response to Tharpe in traditional call and response format, then took the role that would have been assigned to a bass in a male quartet after Tharpe's solo. They toured the gospel circuit for a number of years, during which Tharpe was so popular that she attracted 25,000 paying customers to her wedding to her manager Russell Morrison (her third marriage), followed by a vocal performance, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 1951.
Their popularity took a sudden downturn, however, when they recorded several blues songs in the early 1950s. Knight attempted afterwards to cross over to popular music, while Tharpe remained in the church, but rebuffed by many of her former fans. Retreating to Europe, Tharpe gradually returned to the gospel circuit, although at nowhere near her former celebrity. Her performances were curtailed even further by a stroke in 1970 after which she lost the use of her legs. She died in 1973 after another stroke, on the eve of a scheduled recording session.
[edit] Musical Influence
A number of musicians, ranging from Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to Isaac Hayes and Keith Richards, have identified her—or, more particularly, her singing, guitar playing and showmanship—as an important influence on them. Little Richard referred to the stomping, shouting Gospel music legend as his favorite singer when he was a child. In Macon, Georgia. In 1945, she heard Little Richard sing prior to her concert at the Macon City Auditorium and later invited him on stage to sing with her. Following the show, she paid him for his performance. Johnny Cash's daughter Rosanne similarly stated in an interview with Larry King that Tharpe was her father's favorite singer.
John Lennon makes a cryptic reference to Tharpe at the beginning of the song "Get Back" from the Beatles' 1970 album and film Let It Be. Brixton band Alabama 3 (of Sopranos theme fame) named a track after Sister Rosetta on their debut album Exile on Coldharbour Lane. The Noisettes record a track called "Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit)" on their 2007 album What's the Time Mr. Wolf?
UK indie rock band Noisettes released a single "Sister Rosetta (Capture The Spirit)" in January 2007. Also in 2007, singers Alison Krauss and Robert Plant recorded a duet version of the song Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, written by Sam Phillips.
[edit] In Popular culture
The film Amélie shows the protagonist mesmerized by a rousing TV performance by Tharpe.
[edit] References
[edit] Other sources cited
- Boyer, Horace Clarence. (1995). How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel. Elliott and Clark. ISBN 0-252-06877-7.
- Heilbut, Tony. (1997). The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times. Limelight Editions. ISBN 0-87910-034-6.
- Wald, Gayle. (September 2003). "From Spirituals to Swing: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Gospel Crossover." American Quarterly, 55 (3), 387-416.
- Wald, Gayle. (2007) "Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe" Beacon Press. ISBN 0-80700-984-9.
- White, Charles. (2003). The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography. Omnibus Press. pg. 17.
[edit] External links
- The Gospel of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, All Things Considered radio show, includes Ross Reynolds of NPR affiliate KEXP and the Museum Experience Music Project, January 17, 2004.
- Interview with Tharp biographer Gayle F. Wald, from WILL AM radio (an NPR and PBS affiliate), February 22, 2007.
- Pop Music, To The Best of Our Knowledge radio show, an episode that focused upon popular music and its influences with an interview of Gayle F. Wald about her book "Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe," April 1, 2007
- Rosetta Tharpe MySpace MySpace profile for Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with pictures, music, videos, information, and related resources.de:Rosetta Tharpe
fr:Rosetta Tharpe fi:Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Categories: Articles lacking sources from December 2007 | All articles lacking sources | 1915 births | 1973 deaths | Classic female blues singers | African-American singers | American blues guitarists | American blues singers | American female guitarists | American female singers | American gospel singers | Arkansas musicians | Deaths by stroke | Blues Hall of Fame inductees
