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WHM: How Evangelist and Guitar Pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe Turned Her Rock of Ages into Rock N Roll

WHM: How Evangelist and Guitar Pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe Turned Her Rock of Ages into Rock N Roll

By goodblacknews on March 20, 2025

Born on this day in 1915, Rosetta Tharpe revolutionized the sound of electric guitar by using distortion with her unique phrasing & picking, inspiring Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Johnny Cash & Elvis Presley

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Editor-in-Chief

Born in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas to musical parents who also worked as cotton pickers, Tharpe was a musical prodigy who is reported to have picked up a guitar at four and began performing at age six with her mother, Katie Bell Nubin, a traveling evangelist and mandolin player for the Church of God in Christ.

Though strictly a gospel performer at the outset, by early adulthood, Tharpe started blending spiritual lyrics with the secular sounds of the time, bringing gospel music into nightclubs, while introducing elements of rhythm and blues to church audiences.

At 23, Tharpe started recording her genre-bending sound for Decca Records, resulting in hits such as “Rock Me” and “That’s All”. Tharpe was hired by Lucky Millinder in 1941 to sing and play with his swing band, and toured with them for years performing even more worldly material, including uptempo dance numbers such as “I Want A Tall Skinny Papa”.

Though considered transgressive and controversial at the time, causing an uproar among the gospel community, this boundary-crossing by Tharpe ultimately cemented her legacy as “Godmother of Rock and Roll.”

Though it was rare for women to play guitar in the 1930s and 1940s, Tharpe was among the first popular recording artists to use heavy distortion on her electric guitar, and her picking technique and phrasing influenced countless artists who followed, including Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash.

Little Richard cited Tharpe as one of his major influences, and Chuck Berry once said his career was “one long Rosetta Tharpe impression.”

When you hear Tharpe-penned songs like “That’s All”, “This Train”, “I Want To Live So God Can Use Me” or her covers of gospel tunes like “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”, “Precious Lord, Hold My Hand”, “I Want Jesus To Walk Around My Bedside”or “Strange Things Happening Every Day”, you know neither Richard nor Berry were exaggerating.

Tharpe synthesized blues, hokum, hillbilly, gospel and swing music into her own rocking brand of strumming, bending, picking and vocalizing.

Tharpe’s inclusion on the brief-but-innovative track “Smoke Hour ⭐️ Willie Nelson” on Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning LP Cowboy Carter (2024) inspired me to revisit Tharpe’s foundational, liminal music last year via The Decca Singles, Volumes 1-5compilation series (streaming on Spotify and Apple Music), which covers her early recordings plus her big band, Trio and her later work.

“Smoke Hour ⭐️ Willie Nelson” features a radio dial switching between yodeling, blues, gospel & 50s rock n roll until we land on K-N-T-R-Y station DJ Willie Nelson teeing up Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” into this lineage. The lone female voice heard among the dial turns? Tharpe singing her iconic version of “Down By The Riverside”.

Tharpe was known for her exuberant performances (secular & non-secular) & often her only accompaniment was her own dynamic guitar playing.

A personal Tharpe favorite is “Didn’t It Rain”), where she’s backed by the Sam Price Trio, trades vocals with frequent collaborator Marie Knight and rips an electrifying guitar solo – this song goes so hard and is still so infectious, I can’t help myself from bopping along every time I hear it.

Below is video of her famous live 1966 performance of it in France:

Tharpe was finally inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, and in 2024 Gibson Guitars debuted the Rosetta Tharpe Collection of merchandise in tribute to her (including a miniature replica of the iconic 1961 Les Paul she used to play, but she is still not well-known enough for her vital contributions to American music, even with the Cowboy Carter hat tip.

To learn more about Tharpe, check out the 2008 biography Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-And-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle Wald, watch the 2011 documentary The Godmother of Rock and Roll – Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Gibson Guitars-produced short documentary Shout, Sister, Shout: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as well as performance clips of her available on YouTube.

Sources:

MUSIC MONDAY: Celebrating the “Afroclectic Best of 2024” on MLK Day (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: Celebrating the “Afroclectic Best of 2024” on MLK Day (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on January 20, 2025

by Marlon West (Bluesky: @marlonweststl.bsky.social, Spotify: marlonwest)
Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ultimate Soul of the Season” – The Black Christmas Soundtrack for 2024 (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ultimate Soul of the Season” – The Black Christmas Soundtrack for 2024 (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on December 16, 2024

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Hey Good Black News Fam – it’s time for a bonus playlist – this year’s edition of “Ultimate Soul of the Season – The Black Christmas Soundtrack 2024 Edition,” which you can click here: Ultimate Soul of the Season – The Black Christmas Soundtrack – Expanded for 2024

Each year, we’ve updated our popular holiday music song mix by adding a selection of new releases and new discoveries, and though we’re a little late this year, better late than never.

Now reaching over 45 hours long, it’s intended to be a mainstream background for your Christmas season – like those radio stations that turn holiday music 24/7 – except that all the music is done by Black artists (with an occasional duet with a soulful ally).

The big new Black holiday release this year comes from Jennifer Hudson (from her album The Gift of Love), but there are also new yule tunes from Mary J. Blige, Kanye West’s Sunday Service Choir, H.E.R., and other American Idol vets like Ruben Studdard and Jordin Sparks, modern jazz master Robert Glasper featuring Wicked superstar Cynthia Erivo, ‘it’ girls Coco Jones and Saweetie.

Broadway stars Norm Lewis and Ariana DeBose are also represented, along with veteran Black Brits Rebecca Ferguson, Craig David and Deniece Pearson (of Five Star fame), Tower of Power, Eric Roberson and gospel stars Anthony Evans, Jonathan McReynolds, Naomi Raine, BeBe Winans and CeCe Winans.

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ring of Fire” – Black Voices in Rock And Country Playlist (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ring of Fire” – Black Voices in Rock And Country Playlist (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 18, 2024

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Happy Music Monday! In the weeks since Beyoncé’s recent Country releases, there’s been much debate on her Country bona fides, though the sista has never been shy about voicing her Texas pride.

From Beyoncé’s history with the genre, from the song “Daddy Lessons”, from her 2016 album Lemonade, to the Stetsons worn by Destiny’s Child, many Country devotees ignore her roots and those of other Black artists.

While talking to a good friend and colleague last week, he pointed out that it’s not musicians that draw designations often based on race, it’s the so-called fans. It is also music writers and editors who act as gatekeepers.

Ray Charles, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Elvis Presley, Aerosmith, Love, Brittany Howard, Lola, Valerie June and so many others can’t be bothered. Music is music.

It has been a long-running theme of my playlist and missives here on GBN, that the roots and current impact of Black artists on Country Music and Rock ’n Roll is deep and continuing.

Rhiannon Giddens is present playing the banjo (an instrument whose roots go back to Africa), on “Texas Hold ‘Em”, and with The Carolina Chocolate Drops. As is Lil Nas X, who was also soundly rebuffed by Country music gatekeepers initially.

I’ve included The Black Pumas, TV On The Radio, Clarence Clemons, Tracy Chapman and of course Lenny Kravitz, who all reject rock music being the domain of white artists.

So, please enjoy this collection of artists that aren’t inclined to be labeled and defy labels.

And as always, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ultimate Soul of the Season” – The Black Christmas Soundtrack – Expanded Edition 2023

MUSIC MONDAY: “Ultimate Soul of the Season” – The Black Christmas Soundtrack – Expanded Edition 2023

By goodblacknews on December 4, 2023

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Welcome to the holiday season, Good Black News family!  We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving – and are counting down the 25 days of Christmas now that it’s December.

In what’s become a holiday tradition, we’ve updated our now massive Black Christmas music Spotify playlist with a whole heap of new songs. The month of November was spent searching far and wide across the internet for new releases, old classics now on Spotify, and other tunes and artists we missed in previous years.

So here it is – a refreshed and revived “Ultimate Soul of the Season – The Black Christmas Soundtrack – Expanded Edition 2023”.

We’ve now got over 700 songs across 40+ hours (and we’ll add more if some crucial tunes get released in the next few weeks) – with the goal to be one of the most definitive Black Christmas playlists around.

If you’re still subscribed to the list from a previous year, we’re here to let you know it’s now updated and bigger/better than ever.

If you’ve not subscribed, check it out while you are wrapping presents, baking cookies, decorating your tree, or just sitting cozily in front of a nice roaring fire, with football on mute in the next room.

As a reminder, we set out to make a mainstream Christmas radio station that you can use in the background all season long. But in the GBN tradition, the focus is on Black artists (plus occasional duet partners and a little Robin Thicke).

While other holiday radio focuses on Brenda Lee and Bing Crosby, we’ve got Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. When they play Michael Buble, we play John Legend, or Hamilton star Leslie Odom.

Of course, we’ve got The Jackson 5, Donny Hathaway, the original Eartha Kitt version of “Santa Baby,” Stevie Wonder, and two different renditions of The Temptations doing “Silent Night.” And just like everyone else, Mariah Carey!

We’ve sequenced the list carefully – so that you don’t overload on the same songs, tempos or artists too frequently. You can just let it play – or hit shuffle. Or you can even use it as a base of songs to edit down into your own personal list of favorites.

In addition to soul and pop, there’s some jazz, some gospel, some blues, some a capella, and even disco, reggae and Black country in the mix. Hopefully you find all the classics you need, and some brand new surprises you didn’t know you wanted.

This year’s big new Christmas releases include albums from Brandy (currently starring in the new Netflix hit Best. Christmas. Ever!), jazz star Gregory Porter, and hot new soul star October London.

Ace producer Adam Blackstone has assembled an album with friends that include Keke Palmer and Boyz II Men. And on the traditional side, Grammy-winning Best New Artist Samara Joy has issued an EP, and the legendary Johnny Mathis has issued new tracks as well. We’ve got a couple songs from all of these.

MUSIC MONDAY: “I’ll Take You There” – The Best of Mavis Staples (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “I’ll Take You There” – The Best of Mavis Staples (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on August 14, 2023

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Mavis Staples is eighty-four years old as I peck these words. She has been a gospel and soul singer longer than Elizabeth II wore the crown.

Many R&B vocalists started in gospel music, though she and her family have always kept a foot in both worlds. The Staple Singers have brought their spirituality, and devotion to civil rights to all of their studio and stage offerings.

[spotifyplaybutton play=”https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7JKYZGlQXPJsg3UmONk7Zp?si=e7589239e7e346cc”]

From the churches across the South Side of Chicago and the Rock ‘n Stages with artists a third her age, Mavis Staples has brought her unique smokey voice to audiences for decades.

This collection brings together her many works with The Staple Singers from 1948 until 1999, and her own solo offerings from 1969 to the present.

Mavis Staples is still an in-demand guest vocalist to boot. She has dueted or sung background with Mahalia Jackson, The Band, Gorillaz, Jon Batiste, Run the Jewels, Hozier, Benjamin Booker, Sheryl Crow, Abraham Alexander and so many others.

Mavis Staples is the only subject of one of these playlists that I have had the pleasure of spending any meaningful time with. Back in 2012 I was honored to be one of the Alumni Of The Year at Columbia College Chicago. She received an honorary doctorate from the college.

I was delighted to spend hours visiting with her that graduation weekend. She could not have been more warm, insightful, and kind.

Please enjoy this collection featuring decades of Doctor Mavis’ work with The Staple Singers, as a solo artist, and generous collaborator.

As always, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

MUSIC MONDAY: Soulful Thanksgiving 2022 Playlist (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: Soulful Thanksgiving 2022 Playlist (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on November 14, 2022

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

The holiday season fast approaches, and I’m back with a collection to gather around the table with family and friends.

Here’s a Thanksgiving playlist that includes new music by Rihanna from the BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER soundtrack, and food-centered classics like Cab Calloway’s “Everybody Eats When They Come To My House” from way back in the day.

[spotifyplaybutton play=”https://open.spotify.com/playlist/21kETv2UnVKnydn4bIQfnV?si=c19aa43679904c20″]

This musical journey features soul, jazz, reggae, and gospel, all good music to cook, eat, and clean that kitchen to.

Here’s Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole singing songs about autumn, and several artists like Sly Stone, Massive Attack, and Otis Redding offering songs of thanks.

Plus Little Eva, Fantasia, Louis Jordan and others praising grits, stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, greens, cornbread, and collards to name a few. Hungry yet?

Happy Early Thanksgiving, y’all. I’ll see you soon with a funky holiday season offering next month.

Until such time, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

MUSIC MONDAY: “A Love Supreme” – The Best of Sacred Jazz (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “A Love Supreme” – The Best of Sacred Jazz (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 18, 2022

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

It’s Music Monday! In celebration of Easter and #JazzAppreciationMonth, here is a collection of Sacred Jazz.

When jazz emerged in the first half of the 20th century as music of liberation, entertainment and modernism, it provoked a backlash among cultural and religious-establishment figures.

Many of them went so far as to call it “the music of the devil.” By the middle 1950s, jazz had found its way into the church, sometimes employed in the ritualistic proceedings of liturgies and other traditional ceremonies, or presented in other thematic ways in overt religious homage.

Religion, in some respects, was there from the jump. Many African-American musicians grew up attending and performing in church services, and the imprint of that experience can be found in albums ranging from John Coltrane‘s landmark 1965 LP A Love Supreme to Miles Davis‘ Kind Of Blue.

It was inspired in part, in the words of Davis, “some other kind of sound I remembered from being back in Arkansas, when we were walking home from church and playing these bad gospels.”

This collection features Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe contributions to gospel and sacred jazz, along with pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, known for her Jazz Masses in the 1950s.

Duke Ellington, Kamasi Washington, Pharaoh Sanders, The Free Nationals and many others are on hand too.

Do enjoy.  As always, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

Easter Flowers for Composer and Musician Thomas A. Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music” (LISTEN)

Easter Flowers for Composer and Musician Thomas A. Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music” (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 17, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

On Easter Sunday, GBN celebrates Thomas A. Dorsey, who once worked as Ma Rainey‘s pianist and musical director, and wrote and sang blues songs as the “Georgia Tom” half of the Georgia Tom and Tampa Red duo before revolutionizing gospel music by integrating the feeling of the blues into sacred songs.

To read about Dorsey, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

Audio Player

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 17, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

[Cue “Roll Jordan Roll” by the Fisk Jubilee Quartet]

Gospel music existed before Georgia native Thomas Dorsey turned his ear and pen to it, but it was never the same after.

Working most famously as the piano player and musical director for blues legend Gertrude “Ma” Rainey in the 1920s under the moniker “Georgia Tom.” Despite this success, Dorsey fell into a prolonged period of depression for almost two years and barely performed.

In 1928, Dorsey attended a spirited church service where he claimed a minister pulled a live serpent from his throat. From that point on, Dorsey vowed to dedicate himself to composing gospel music. Dorsey wrote “If You See My Savior” in honor of a friend who passed, which combined a blues feeling into a more traditional hymnal structure:

[Excerpt of “If You See My Savior”]

Dorsey tried to sell his new sacred songs directly to publishers and churches but initially had no luck and returned to writing the blues. With duet partner Tampa Red, as “Georgia Tom” Dorsey had a big hit in 1928, selling over seven million copies of “It’s Tight Like That”:

[Excerpt of “It’s Tight Like That”]

This type of “dirty blues” or “Hokum” songs proved to be popular and the duo recorded and performed for years until Dorsey finally turned to gospel music for good.

He formed a gospel blues choir in Chicago, which helped the new style catch on, and soon became the musical director for Pilgrim Baptist Church and running his own music publishing company.

Dorsey worked with a young Mahalia Jackson in the late 1920s and originally composed for Jackson what became a beloved song not only in gospel blues circles, but country & western as well.

[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys]

“Peace in the Valley” has been recorded by over the decades by artists such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton.

And while he was still in his gospel group in the 1960s, Sam Cooke and his Soul Stirrers took their turn in the valley as well:

[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers]

In Dorsey’s lifetime, which was long – he lived to 93 – Dorsey composed over 3,000 songs, including the one Martin Luther King, Jr. said was his favorite, the one Mahalia Jackson ended up singing at his funeral, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”:

[Excerpt of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”]

Dorsey’s songs changed the sound of sacred music and influenced generations to come, which is why he is often called “The Father of Gospel Music.”

Dorsey has been inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Dorsey by adding his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey, to the United States National Recording Registry.

To learn more about Thomas Dorsey, watch the 1982 musical documentary Say Amen, Somebody, currently available on YouTube and DVD, check out his collection of papers archived at Fisk University, read 1994’s The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church by Michael W. Harris, which you can borrow from the Internet Archive, and 2015’s Anointed to Sing the Gospel: The Levitical Legacy of Thomas A. Dorsey by Kathryn B. Kemp.

https://youtu.be/_9IJljbyVok

You can also watch 2005’s The Story of Gospel Music documentary, which is currently available on DVD.

And every year, Dorsey’s hometown of Villa Rica, Georgia holds an annual Thomas A. Dorsey Birthplace Heritage Festival of gospel music. This year’s will be held on June 25thand 26th.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

And before we go, let’s hear a clip of Thomas Dorsey himself speaking on the meaning of gospel:

“Down through the ages gospel – what? What did they say was? You mean to tell me you don’t know that good news? On down to the ages, gospel was good news. Now if you don’t know that I’ll rush you out of here myself.”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

“Roll Jordan Roll” by the Fisk Jubilee Singers is in the Public Domain.

Excerpts of songs composed by Thomas A. Dorsey are included under Fair Use.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

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MUSIC MONDAY: Celebrating “Summer of Soul” and Questlove’s Best Documentary Oscar Win (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: Celebrating “Summer of Soul” and Questlove’s Best Documentary Oscar Win (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 28, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

There was a great moment that happened at last night’s Academy Awards, but because it happened directly after a shocking moment, it’s not getting the all the flowers and love it should.

So for this #MusicMonday, we are fully celebrating the fact that Summer of Soul, the feature documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival directed by The Roots co-founder and musical impresario Questlove, won a much-deserved Oscar. And if you (like so many of us) missed his acceptance speech, here it is:

https://youtu.be/IPbOF4wpEVw

Still streaming on Hulu and available on DVD, Summer of Soul is an education and gift to the eyes and ears and if you don’t currently have access to Summer of Soul, the movie, listening to the music from the acts featured in the film is the next best thing:

I’ve included the playlist of the official soundtrack album along with an extended playlist.

From Sly and the Family Stone to the Fifth Dimension, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Edwin Hawkins Singers, The Staples Singers, Mongo Santamaria, David Ruffin, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and others, the music on display and the stories behind the event are close to (if not completely) mind-blowing.

And if you need another push to check it out (or revisit it), here’s the trailer of the documentary:

Thank you, again, Questlove and all the artists involved that helped bring the “Summer of Soul” into our lives for all seasons.  You all truly made — and resurrected — important cultural history.

Enjoy!