By Don Valentine
After decades of debate, Rock and Roll is clearly the progeny of Blues and Gospel music. This is the red clay, picking cotton from Sunrise till Sunset and nothing to eat but scraps Blues! An often ignored contribution to this aural feast was the soul of a Queer Black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and the Beatles rocked their guitars.
Rosetta came from a family of gospel singers, cotton pickers and preachers. At the age of six she accompanied her mother to perform with a traveling evangelist troupe in churches around the South. By first grade this guitar savant had found her gift to the music world. She grew up in Chicago, and began fusing Delta blues, New Orleans jazz and gospel music into what would become her signature style.
Her breakthrough was in the 1930’s and the reason she never received her deserved accolades was three fold. First, she was a woman leading the band on guitar. Second, she was a vocal Black woman performing in the “Segregationist” [a.k.a. “Chitlin”] circuit. Thirdly, she was not discreet about her paramours. If you’re a Black lesbian strumming a guitar you would have to be phenomenal to gain any notoriety.
NPR chronicled that, “Tharpe’s distinctive voice and unconventional style attracted fans, Female guitarists were rare, and even more so a musician who pursued both religious and secular themes, a fact that alarmed the gospel community. But Tharpe — young and innovative — was determined to keep experimenting with her sound. Her persistence and grit paid off, and by 1938, she had joined the Cotton Club Revue, a New York City club that became especially notable during the Prohibition era. She was only 23 at the time, a feat that was only amplified when she scored her first single, “Rock Me,” a gospel and rock ‘n’ roll fusion hit. Her penchant for secular themes alarmed the gospel community. Rosseta kept expressing her music close to the edge. She was only 23 at the time, a feat that was only amplified when she scored her first single, “Rock Me,” a gospel and rock ‘n’ roll fusion, along with three other gospel songs: “My Man and I,” “That’s All” and “Lonesome Road.” To learn more, read Gayle Wald’s “ Shout, Sister, Shout!
