Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American gospel singer and electric guitarist whose fusion of gospel with rhythm and blues helped shape rock and roll.

Thomas A. Dorsey: An American composer and pianist who helped establish modern gospel music. His gospel songwriting helped shape the musical world Tharpe performed in.
Electric guitar: A guitar that uses electrical amplification to make its strings audible and shape their sound. Amplification let Tharpe project guitar lines with unusual force and sustain.
Strange Things Happening Every Day: A 1944 Sister Rosetta Tharpe recording that blends gospel singing with a swinging rhythm. Its commercial success demonstrated that gospel could reach a broad secular audience.
Cotton Plant, Arkansas: A town in eastern Arkansas where Sister Rosetta Tharpe was born in 1915. Tharpe’s upbringing in the American South preceded her rise as a gospel performer.
Rock and roll: A popular music genre that emerged in the United States in the 1950s from blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, and country. Tharpe’s sound helped establish musical elements later central to rock and roll.
Lucky Millinder: An American bandleader whose orchestra blended swing, jazz, and rhythm and blues. Tharpe performed with his orchestra, reaching audiences beyond church settings.
Gospel music: A Christian musical tradition centered on expressive singing, religious themes, and communal worship. Tharpe carried gospel vocal phrasing and repertoire into popular performance settings.
Rock Me: A gospel song recorded by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1938 for Decca Records. Its guitar and vocal style made Tharpe’s gospel sound strikingly close to later rock.
Church of God in Christ: A Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in the United States in 1897. Its worship and musical practices shaped Tharpe’s early performance and religious formation.
Rockabilly: A 1950s style combining country music with rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. Its guitar-led energy echoes the crossover Tharpe helped make audible.

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