APPRECIATING SISTER ROSETTA THARPE
religious music for us seculars
1/6/25 edit: Oops! When I originally published this article, I included the wrong link to a playlist of Sister Tharpe’s music. That’s been fixed. And for your convenience, here it is again right at the top of the story.
The holidays are rife with religious music, and though I’m not a religious person myself, I have a raised-Catholic’s soft spot for songs about God. With all the O Little Town of Bethlehems and Silent Nights ringing around over the last few weeks, I wanted to take the opportunity to share a religious artist who is one of my favorites and had an enormous influence on rock: Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Before there was Elvis, Johnny Cash, or Chuck Berry, all figures usually assigned to a first wave of rock n roll, there was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Born in 1915 in Arkansas, Tharpe got her start singing in evangelical troupes with her mother before eventually bursting onto the world stage in the late 1930s with four songs, “Rock Me,” “That’s All,” “My Man And I,” and “The Lonesome Road,” all blending a gospel sound and religious lyrics with a twangy, finger-picked electric guitar. Listening to those early tracks now, it feels distinctly of an era: The heavy fuzz and delivery bring to mind other ‘30s acts like The Ink Spots who have since become an iconic sonic symbol of old timiness in music. But what’s so remarkable about those four songs is how contemporary they also feel, reverberating through the last century of music. Tharpe burns with an energy and spirit that can’t be communicated through vocals alone, as commanding as hers are—She was also a formative guitarist who pioneered the electric blues, influencing early rock musicians like those mentioned above and even later acts like Eric Clapton. Her guitar might sound classic compared to some of the ultra-compressed and distorted hard rock guitars of today, but it was a revolutionary, edgy sound for the time that drew cries of blasphemy from religious crowds who felt it shouldn’t be paired with lyrics about God.
But the seculars couldn’t get enough of it. Tharpe played her songs with big bands in nightclubs, those hotbeds of sin, to crowds who may not have attended Sunday mass but were eager to hear her belt and shred. She was one of the first commercially successful gospel artists, bringing religious music to the forefront of pop culture, and came to define an era of music. Her European tours influenced a generation of British rock artists, and during World War II, she was one of just two gospel artists whose music was sent to soldiers overseas.
I’m no music historian—I’m just a fan. Tharpe was an incredibly complex figure and there is endless, fascinating writing on her that shows how deep you can get just exploring any one facet of her character. Tharpe wasn’t even her real last name—it’s a name from an early marriage that she kept as a performer. Her birth name isn’t known for sure, giving her the unknowable mystique befitting a founder of rock. Maybe one of the most interesting things about Tharpe is that she was queer, recording many songs with her lover Marie Knight throughout her career. It’s fitting that a person who popularized a new era of religious music was herself both deeply devout and someone who religious institutions discriminated against. Those same people would go on to call rock n roll the devil’s music, unable to recognize that its roots lay within their own faith.
I’ve put together a small playlist for you to enjoy of some of her recordings that span across the 1900s, moving from fuzzy ‘30s records to live sessions to clearer, more modern-sounding recordings that emphasize her timelessness. But I want to leave you with this: A video of Tharpe performing my favorite song of hers, “This Train,” in 1964. I love this video—I think it shows what a commanding, funny, incomparable artist Tharpe was, dripping with sweat under stage lights and toying with the audience. This is what a queen of rock looks like. The voice of God is a Les Paul Custom and Sister Tharpe throughout the ages.
Happy holidays friends, and thanks for making the first year of this blog so enjoyable. See you next week!