Sister Rosetta Tharpe
photo: james j. kriegsmann · public domain ↗Sister Rosetta Tharpe plugged a guitar into gospel music and rewired American popular song in the process. Raised performing in Pentecostal churches across the South, she became the first great crossover star of sacred music, distorting her electric guitar into something that sounded like the future a full decade before anyone called it rock and roll. She died in 1973, only decades later reclaimed as the Godmother of Rock and Roll her records had always proven her to be.
Tharpe sang the hymns of Thomas Dorsey, the songwriter widely credited as the father of modern gospel music, recording his standard 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' early in her career.
listen forCompare Dorsey's own reading of 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' with Tharpe's 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' — the blues-inflected tenderness of Dorsey's gospel songwriting comes through in both.
Dranes's boogie-and-ragtime-inflected gospel piano and rhythmically loose, Holiness-church vocal style were among the direct sonic templates Tharpe drew on as she shaped her own sanctified sound for record.
listen forListen to the rollicking, syncopated drive under Dranes's 'It's All Right Now,' then Tharpe's 'Strange Things Happening Every Day' — the rhythmic urgency of Holiness church music runs straight through both.
Tharpe's guitar playing carried audible traces of Memphis Minnie's sharp, syncopated picking, part of the wider blues guitar vocabulary Tharpe folded into her gospel recordings.
listen forHear Minnie's biting, percussive guitar lines on 'When the Levee Breaks,' then Tharpe's guitar work on 'Down by the Riverside' — the same confident, blues-rooted attack, redirected toward the church.