Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Shout Sister Shout

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was gospel music’s first diva. 

Not only did Sister Rosetta audaciously lead black gospel out of the church and into nightclubs and concert venues during the late 1930s–thus broadening its demographics exponentially if risking the wrath of the pious--she saw no conflict in singing holy material for the duly converted and an occasional earthy blues for the rhythm and blues market.

Whether she was belting out a joyous invitation to hop aboard the Gospel Train or announcing her yen for a tall skinny papa, Tharpe emoted from the very depths of her soul, deftly accompanying her booming, melismatic pipes with a blistering, single-string-permeated guitar technique that rivaled that of blueswoman Memphis Minnie (or any axe-toting male on the scene, for that matter). Displaying a dazzling stage presence that radiated star quality, the Sister was wowing crowds across the nation well prior to Mahalia Jackson’s ascendancy to the throne as gospel’s queen, and an obvious connection exists between Tharpe’s cleansing cries and Aretha Franklin’s subsequent earthshaking wails.

Born March 20, 1915 in minuscule Cotton Plant, Arkansas, Rosetta Nubin was born into a sanctified family. Her mother, Katie Bell Nubin, tore up many a house of worship as a singing evangelist, and at the age of four Rosetta, by then reportedly quite conversant on guitar, joined her musical missionary campaign as “Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar-playing miracle.” The pair moved to Chicago in the ‘20s, the elder Nubin joining the 40th Street Church of God in Christ. The mother/daughter duo would perform uplifting spirituals together at affiliated churches, religious conventions, and on the southern tent-meeting circuit.

Rosetta married Pastor Wilbur Thorpe of the Pittsburgh Pentecostal Church in 1934, expanding the family’s musical strength–Katie picked mandolin, Rosetta guitar, and Thorpe the ukulele when they traveled the southern states in search of souls to save. But the marriage didn’t last. In 1936 Rosetta relocated to New York City, where the bright lights were apparently seductive. Tharpe joined ebullient bandleader Cab Calloway’s fabled revue at the Cotton Club in the autumn of ‘38, thundering her exhilarating brand of gospel at an entirely different and considerably more well–heeled audience than she ever encountered on the COGIC circuit. By then, Rosetta had altered the spelling of her surname to Tharpe. 

Debuting on wax on Halloween of 1938, Sister Rosetta’s inspiring conception of gospel music swung from the outset. Her first 78 for Decca Records, waxed solo with only her rocking acoustic guitar for accompaniment, paired the Thomas Dorsey-penned “Rock Me” and a driving adaptation of Gene Austin’s “The Lonesome Road,” while her followup “That’s All” bordered on sassy yet spread the heavenly message with pew-shaking effectiveness.

Sister Rosetta was an immediate sensation, co-starring at John Hammond’s Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall that December and returning to the studio for Decca in January. Her encore session produced the rousing “This Train,” a gospel landmark forever associated with Tharpe that eventually provided the melody and structure for Chicago blues harmonica genius Little Walter’s 1955 R&B chart-topper “My Babe,” its secular lyrics provided by Willie Dixon. Tharpe’s guitar solo was a model of blues-permeated filigrees, her commanding voice ringing out the good news. The Cotton Club hosted Tharpe for an extended run, and she starred at the Apollo Theatre with Calloway in 1940. Even Life magazine ran a piece on her. Another solo Decca date in March of 1941 elicited a fine “Stand By Me” and the rollicking “Sit Down.”. 

Three months later, Tharpe joined Lucky Millinder’s popular orchestra as one of his featured vocalists. Millinder’s expansive outfit included pianist Bill Doggett, drummer Panama Francis, and 11 horns (Alabama-born Lucky was strictly a conductor–his only “instrument” was baton), and Rosetta wrapped her powerhouse pipes around Richard M. Jones’ mournful blues “Trouble In Mind” at her first Decca session with Millinder’s band, as well as the lighthearted spiritual “Rock Daniel.” Rosetta fronted Lucky’s orchestra in three film soundies that summer, the selections including a raucous “Four Or Five Times” and the swinging “Shout, Sister, Shout.”

“Rock Me” and “That’s All” were reinvented as big band flagwavers during the fall of ‘41, Millinder’s organization sailing strong behind the delightful Rosetta. On the latter, she switched to electric guitar and peeled off a typically blazing solo. Before year’s end, Tharpe reverted to her acoustic roots for a solo all-gospel session that included “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” and Dorsey’s “Precious Lord, Hold My Hand,” but she wasn’t through with secular material by any means. In fact, you can’t stray much further from the sacred path than her lascivious R&B hit “I Want A Tall Skinny Papa,” written by Millinder and tenor saxist Stafford “Pazzuza” Simon and rousingly waxed by Rosetta in February of 1942. 

Not long before musicians union boss James Petrillo shut down the recording industry in August of 1942 for more than a year, Rosetta did four more solo spirituals for Decca. But the strike didn’t keep Tharpe out of the studio entirely; in the summer of ‘43, she recut several of her best-known numbers with Millinder’s outfit for the Armed Forces Radio Services’ Jubilee shows. On August 28, 1943, Rosetta quit Lucky’s band to go out on her own, regally headlining clubs in New York and Los Angeles and doing a solo gospel session for Decca that November.

Teaming with the swinging trio of Texas-born blues pianist Sammy Price (a fixture at Decca for many years), Rosetta waxed four songs in September of 1944. One of them, the incendiary gospel workout “Strange Things Are Happening Every Day,” flew to #2 on Billboard’s R&B charts the following spring, its irresistible piano-powered drive echoing the jump blues tempos of the day. Price and his rotating rhythm section continued to back Rosetta at Decca on the rumbling jumps “God’s Mighty Hand” and “The Lord Followed Me” in 1946. 

The next year brought her a vocal duet foil, Madame Marie Knight’s husky vocal delivery blending beautifully with Tharpe on a rollicking “Didn’t It Rain” and the soaring “Stretch Out.” 

Born in Florida but raised in Newark, New Jersey (she’d debuted on shellac in ‘46), Knight joined Tharpe in a little moonlighting in July of 1947 when Sister Rosetta knocked off another “This Train” for Jack Lauderdale’s Down Beat logo in L.A., masquerading as Sister Katy Marie. Decca didn’t respond positively to the ploy, and the 78 was yanked from the shelves. 

Back on Decca with the ever-reliable Price still manning the ivories, Rosetta and Marie’s “Precious Memories” rose to #13 on Billboard’s R&B hit parade in mid-1948. The duo testified up a storm on the thrilling “Up Above My Head, I Hear Music In The Air,” engaging in a call-and-response flurry that translated into a #6 R&B showing at the beginning of 1949. The two would remain a unit in the studio and on the gospel highway into the mid-1950s. Knight had a 1949 hit on Decca with “Gospel Train” before going secular, enjoying a long and distinguished career as an R&B and soul singer. Rosetta’s last appearance on the R&B charts came during the ‘49 holiday season with a #6 rendition of “Silent Night.” She finally exited Decca in 1956 and joined the roster of Mercury Records the following year. 

Rosetta married ex-Ink Spots manager Russell Morrison in 1951 before 25,000 guests at Griffin Stadium in Washington D.C. who paid for the privilege. But as the decade progressed, her vast following began to dwindle as devout churchgoers continued to debate the legitimacy of Tharpe’s concert and nightclub activities. Over in Europe, there were no such conflicts: Rosetta journeyed across the pond for a tour that persisted for nearly a year. She remained a European favorite; in 1964 she co-headlined the BBC-TV program Blues and Gospel Train, delivering a sizzling “Didn’t It Rain” (Muddy Waters, Cousin Joe, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee also appeared on the show, taped in a cavernous British railway station). 

In 1960, Tharpe cut most of this collection live in Europe. When Sister Rosetta belted out “Can’t Sit Down,” her electric guitar licks as stinging and supple as ever, it’s a miracle anyone in the assemblage could remain seated. Her program that day was studded with past triumphs--“Didn’t It Rain,” “The Gospel Train,” “Down By The Riverside” (first waxed by Tharpe for Decca in 1948 with a male vocal group, the Dependable Boys, providing snappy backup)–but Tharpe also found room for “Peace In The Valley” and a cheerful “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.” A handful of selections hail from another concert where she revisited “That’s All” and graced her throng with “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Go Ahead,” “Jonah In The Whale,” “Travelin’ Shoes,” and a deeply moving “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child.”

Gospel music’s first female star died October 9, 1973 after suffering a stroke at age 58. Tharpe’s massive influence resonates to this day, and not just within African-American gospel circles. Her relentlessly rocking rhythms inexorably impacted rockabilly renegades Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Sleepy LaBeef, who tore up “Strange Things Happening” as the title track of his 1994 CD for Rounder Records. 

Long before the term “soul” came into fashion, Sister Rosetta Tharpe possessed it in abundance.

–Bill Dahl

SOURCES

The Golden Age of Gospel, by Horace Clarence Boyer (Urbana IL & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995)

Blues & Gospel Records 1902-1943, by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich (Essex, G.B.: Storyville Pubs., 1982

The Mercury Labels: A Discography, Volume II, The 1956-1964 Era, compiled by Michel Ruppli and Ed Novitsky (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993)

Jazz in the Movies, by David Meeker (New York: Da Capo Press, 1981)

Joel Whitburn’s Top R&B Singles 1942-1988, by Joel Whitburn (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research Inc., 1988)