Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Trivia

Gospel musician, born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, USA. She began singing and playing guitar in church, and by 1938 was a featured soloist in Cotton Club revues backed by Cab Calloway and Lucky Millinder. Beginning in 1944, she developed a huge following in the burgeoning Gospel market, which she maintained for the rest of her life.

"Sister" Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was a pioneering Gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock accompaniment. She became the first great recording star of Gospel music, first surfacing on the pop charts with her 1938 original composition "This Train."

Little Richard referred to the stompin', shoutin' Gospel music legend as his "favorite singer" when he was a child.

Willing to cross the line between sacred and secular performing her inspirational music of 'light' into the 'darkness' of the nightclubs and concert halls with big bands behind her, her witty, idiosyncratic style also left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists, such as Ira Tucker, Sr. While she offended conservative churchgoers with her forays into the world of pop music, she never left gospel music. Exposed to both blues and jazz both in the South and after her family moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, she played blues and jazz in private, while performing gospel music in public settings. After marrying COGIC preacher Thomas Tharpe in 1934 and moving to New York City, she recorded four sides with Decca Records backed by "Lucky" Millinder's jazz orchestra. Her records caused an immediate furor: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of sacred and secular music, but secular audiences loved them. Songs like "This Train" and "Rock Me", which combined gospel themes with bouncy up-tempo arrangements, became smash hits among audiences with little previous exposure to gospel music.

Tharpe continued recording during World War II, one of only two gospel groups able to record V-discs for troops overseas. It was also the first gospel song to make Billboard's "race records" Top Ten--something that Sister Rosetta Tharpe accomplished several more times in her career. Their hit "Up Above My Head" showed both of them to great advantage: Knight provided the response to Tharpe in traditional call and response format, then took the role that would have been assigned to a bass in a male quartet after Tharpe's solo. They toured the gospel circuit for a number of years, during which Tharpe was so popular that she attracted 25,000 paying customers to her wedding to her manager Russell Morrison (her third marriage), followed by a vocal performance, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. Knight attempted afterwards to cross over to popular music, while Tharpe remained in the church, but rebuffed by many of her former fans. Retreating to Europe, Tharpe gradually returned to the gospel circuit, although at nowhere near her former celebrity.

Trivia

In the film Amélie the TV performance of the manic guitar-playing gospel singer, which so mesmerises the title character, is that of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.