Rhythm and Truth — Reflections on The Discovery of Sister Rosetta Tharpe
By Celia Galindo
The words “Rock and Roll” leave my lips. What do I see? Images of Joan Jett, Slash, and even Elvis flood my mind, but they neglect one significant figure. She has been stashed away in the throes of history, abandoned in favor of faces on the covers of records we associate with commercials and top 10 lists. She is a pioneer, and we have yet to wear t-shirts with her name or face. She is a legend but a pivotal part of rock history that we seldom know about. Her name is Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Rosetta Nubin (Sister) Tharpe was a prolific guitarist and gospel singer who first rose to prominence following a performance with Cab Calloway in 1938. Her style consists of elements like hammer-ons and distortion, resembling the features of blues and rock music as we understand it today. However, her performances predate many of the references we associate with this technique, as much of the music at the time was composed with little emphasis on electric guitar. Paired with her impressive guitar stylings is a powerful voice capable of filling a room with sound without a microphone. Her dedication and skill in her craft make her a powerful musical force to be recognized, and yet it is only as recently as the past ten years that such deserved recognition has been made. Gayle Wald writes in her article on the “memeification” of Tharpe that her tracking of the Sister’s history led to the revelation of historical frameworks that forced Tharpe to prioritize her religion over her gender and sexual identity. Wald states, “I followed Tharpe’s own lead in prioritizing her public self-identification as a Pentecostal Christian — as the “Sister” in her stage name reminded fans — and paid close attention to her cultural negotiations of black Christian respectability politics, using the sacred/secular as an organizing trope for her multiple gendered and raced transgressions’’ (Wald, 2020). With Tharpe basing her identity on the religious aspects of her life, she is bringing to the forefront her talent and ambition rather than defining herself solely by her race, gender, or sexuality.
Themes of intersectionality were indeed at play when first examining Sister Rosetta Tharpe and trying to determine why she had been neglected from music history until fairly recently. Her more recent popularization is likely due to an overall openness towards various identities within the music community and in fields such as education and political activism. The 1930s and 40s, where Tharpe was first gaining popularity, preceded the Civil Rights efforts by decades, and the turmoil of the Great Depression overshadowed a victory for women’s suffrage. Not to mention the overwhelming scorn met by homosexual women during the period. In 1928, banning the lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness led to an unequivocal abandonment of same-sex couples and a legislatively backed public opinion that same-sex couples were morally damaging. Diana Souhami of The Guardian writes, “Censoring this book caused a pall of embarrassment to shroud same-sex relationships between women, which until then had not interested the lawmakers, and closed down acceptance of expressions of diversity” (Souhami, 2018). The transparent attitudes towards homosexuality sanctioned by government officials would undoubtedly prevent any number of LGBTQIA+ individuals from showcasing their identity at the time, so it may be reasonable to assume that these attributions were applied at the time as well.
Audre Lorde highlighted the inherent issues of second-wave feminism by referencing the era’s tendency to cater to white, middle-class, heterosexual women while neglecting the existence of African-American and lesbian activists. These sentiments seemed to have been runoff from the attitudes of the prior decades, as these ideologies perpetuated well into the Civil Rights era. Sister Tharpe’s identity was layered with qualities that would have been outright scrutinized if not ignored by much of the public eye. A direct result of this effect is the erasure of Tharpe’s contributions for decades, so the focus was enveloped by artists like Elvis Presley instead. Even though his musical stylings followed after artists like Tharpe, the allowance of his appearance and heterosexual identity increased the interest in rhythm & blues and rock to a predominantly white audience. His popularity that followed further overshadowed these lesser-known artists, and despite his best efforts, he could not encourage the public music scene of the ’60s to actively engage with African-American artists, much less lesbian or gay artists.
In discovering Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I have reinterpreted the popularization of rock music and music in general. We have now established that music is a space where any identity can be welcomed with open arms. Still, popularization depends on the acknowledgment that these artists exist. It is endlessly unfortunate that talent and dedication do not take precedence over the qualities of one’s identity. It is perhaps the explanation for abandoning artists like Sister Tharpe until this new age of open mindsets becomes commonplace. It is likely not to happen again, however, as the world is constantly shifting towards acknowledging new identities that merit recognition for their bravery, perseverance, and impressive musical abilities. Only time will tell if we’ve abandoned yet another Rosetta. Still, in moving forward and acknowledging her immense contributions to music, we can ensure that future rockers will never be left behind again.
Works Cited
Rosetta Nubin (Sister) Tharpe.” The Black Perspective in Music, vol. 2, no. 2, 1974, pp. 227–227, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1214272. Accessed 4 May 2022.
Souhami, Diana. “The 1930s: ‘Women had the vote, but the old agitation went on.’” The Guardian, 4 February 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/04/the-1930s-women-had-the-vote-but-the-old-agitation-went-on. Accessed 4 May 2022.
Wald, Gayle. “‘A Queer Black Woman Invented Rock-and-Roll’: Rosetta Tharpe, Memes, and Memory Practices in the Digital Age.” Feminist media studies (2020): 1–17. Web.
