30: The Woman who REALLY Started Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

2022/2/2

Chapters

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a pioneering guitarist and vocalist, is introduced as the unknown mother of Rock & Roll, influencing legends like Elvis Presley and Little Richard with her song 'Rock Me'.

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Hi, friends. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian, and I'd like to welcome you to the Dark History Library, or the Library of Dark History, depending on who you ask. It's the same thing, right? If you're new here, hi. This is a safe space for all the curious cats out there who are thinking, hey, is history really as boring as it seemed in school? Oh, nay, nay. This is where we can learn together about the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories our teachers never told us about.

Sometimes I like to tell you like how I get to the point of the story. Like how do I get there, right? I don't know. Anyways, what I'm getting at is something I like to do for fun is I like to think of different band names. Okay, because in my mind, look, in my mind, I want an all-girl punk band, okay? I can't, I don't play any instruments or anything like that, but I want to be in an all-girl punk band so bad. So if you're down, let me know. I'll play the triangle, you know, like...

You know, it'll be so fun. But what I'm getting at is I like to think of different band names in my free time, okay? And one of my favorites, one that I have settled on, and you cannot steal this, goddammit, is the Pocket Pussies. Is that not great? Come on. It has so many different meanings depending on how you look at it. All girls, we're going to be like badass. We'll be like, fuck yeah, just yelling. Me in the back of the triangle.

You know, come on. It's going to be. So let me know if you're interested. We can have matching jackets, patches. It'll be a good time. What I'm getting at, though, is music. Ain't it fun? Sure is. When you look into music, a lot of the times it's hard to come across like a really rad all-girl punk band. They're out there. Don't get me wrong. But I mean, how many times do you look at a band and it's just men?

Exactly. Like all of them. All the mainstream ones. Yeah. It's always white men in their tight pants with no shirt on. We are bored. We are bored. So when you think about it, we have been spoon fed all these years as to what like the music industry or bands specifically are supposed to look like. Especially when so much music was created by black and brown musicians, both male and female. But...

What do we always see? As a melting pot of cultures and identities, the United States takes credit for a bunch of things invented somewhere else. Like apple pie. That's British. Burger. German. Cowboys. Spanish.

Even the tune of the frickin' Star Spangled Banner was originally an English drinking song. So we don't even have that, you know? But rock and roll? Now that is totally a homegrown product of the U.S. of A. Hell to the yes. And even though its history is complex, rock and roll has a pretty clear origin story. Anywho, so let me grab my dark history book here and kind of turn to the page of the birth of rock.

Here it is. Birth of Rock. Remember back when we did that episode about Jazz? Well, if Jazz was kind of the dangerous new kid from New Orleans, think of Rock and Roll as her wild child cousin who took a while to find herself.

The first ingredient of rock and roll is the blues. Now, the blues reflected the black experience in southern United States and came into its own after the Civil War and emancipation. It represented freedom of expression as well as actual freedom. By the late 1920s, the other main ingredients of rock and roll were beginning to mix together. They were jazz, boogie-woogie,

and jump blues, which was a faster, more lively version of the typical blues. And all these styles were making their way throughout the country, starting to form something that kinda sorta feels like rock and roll. So then in the 1940s, all these styles of music are influencing one another, creating cool mashups and inspiring new inventive choices. And this leads us to a genre of music called rhythm and blues.

Or R&B. I know what you're thinking. We know what R&B is, Bailey. Slow jams, baby making music. Well, that's R&B as we know it today. But back in the 40s, R&B was an experience. It was heavily influenced by a more gospel-flavored version of the blues called the roll, along with the rockabilly nature of country and western music, which is where we get rock.

Is this making sense? And some believe this is where the phrase rock and roll come from, or came from, I should say. While no one is 100% certain, most agree that rock and roll came directly out of the style of rhythm and blues. But what about the name rock and roll? Well, some writers use the phrase in a sexual context, as in let's go for a roll in the hay, which is like a phrase I never understood, still don't.

Have you ever rolled in hay? It's pokey. That shit hurts. Not fun. So actually, did you guys ever see 10 Things I Hate About You when Heath Ledger makes out with what's her name in the hay?

After they were playing with the paintballs. Come on. That was like my favorite moment. Someone remembers over here. I think it's Joan. Joan, you remember that shit. We fantasize about that all day and all night. So I will roll in that hay all day if it's with rest in peace Heath Ledger. Okay, anyways. Rock and roll. So while much of rock and roll's roots are traced to gospel music, the church was never going to be her home. Her DNA was too badass and disruptive.

She belonged in like a sweaty club, dance halls, and stadiums because it was all about being uninhibited, spontaneous, and fun. But the definition of rock and roll really started to take shape in May of 1942 when a music critic for Billboard described a song as rock and roll spiritual singing.

Yeah, that song was called "Rock Me" and it was a total game changer. Not only did it plant the seed of what rock and roll would become, but it also introduced to the world a brilliant 23-year-old guitarist and vocalist named Sister Rosetta Tharp. This very song had a direct influence on a couple of names you may know: Elvis, Little Richard,

Jerry Lee Lewis. And over the next few decades, Sister Rosetta would invent rock and roll as we know it today. But now let's pause for an ad break.

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BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere. And the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

So who the heck is Sister Rosetta Tharp, if you don't know? And have you ever heard of her? Probably not. How come a lot of us haven't heard of her? Let's talk about it, shall we? Thank you. We're going to do that. So Rosetta Tharp was born on March 20th, 1950 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, which why don't they call it Arkansas?

It makes sense. Kansas, there's an AR. Why is it Arkansas? Anyway, so she's born. Step one. She was born to a woman named Katie Harper on a farm where both of them lived and worked. Now,

Now, Rosetta was special right from the start. This was because music entered her life super early on. Both her mother and her father taught Rosetta to sing and to play an instrument. Her mother, Katie, played the mandolin and the piano, and her father played the guitar and harmonica. She also started playing guitar by the time she was four years old. What the hell kind of genius, baby?

Genius over here. Rosetta's mom was a traditional evangelist with the Church of God in Christ, also known as Kojic. This Kojic branch was a Pentecostal denomination that was composed totally of black members. In the years after emancipation, it was incredibly important for black Americans to have their own places of worship outside of white oversight.

This provided community, humanity, and a safe space, which was necessary because of how the country was back then. And even though her mother wasn't allowed in the church band, women in Kojak could be music teachers or evangelists. And they were given titles such as mother or sister. Now, most Pentecostal denominations demanded its members live clean lives.

and not give into worldly desires, meaning no booze, smoking, no sex outside of marriage, gambling, or no social dancing, you nasties. While Kojic was not a fan of these worldly desires, they urged their members to shout their faith with everything from drums to trumpets to guitars, and even bodies could be used as percussion instruments.

Yeah, that sounds wild. But I mean, just like clapping their hands or stomping their feet. So Kojic services were exciting and dramatic with preachers who painted horrifying pictures of hell and lovely images of heaven. And the music was joyful and vibrant, incorporating elements of blues and ragtime as they sang slave spirituals and traditional hymns.

So Rosetta loved going to church services. This is where her first musical experiences took place, where she laid the foundation for her future rise to stardom. Despite the liberal attitude toward music, women in Kojic were held to strict standards of modesty. No makeup, no jewelry, no fancy outfits. Simply put, the women were very regulated.

And this was because the church believed that these rules helped shield the women from degrading ideas, that black women were wicked temptresses and sexually shameless. The church was real serious about how their woman behaved. So when they found out Rosetta's mom hadn't always abided by those rules, they lost their shit and completely turned their backs on them. This wasn't excommunication or anything like that. Kojic shunned them completely.

And even though Rosetta and her mom were still firm believers in Kojic, this changed the course of Rosetta's life forever. I always say fur-ever. For-ever. So when Rosetta was around five or six years old, the church discovered that her mother, Katie, was not married when she gave birth to Rosetta. In fact, she wasn't married at all. And this was a huge no-no.

A prime example of giving into worldly desires and living secular instead of sacred. So the Kojic community and cotton plant shunned both Katie and Rosetta.

Rosetta and Katie are left to pick up the pieces. And now during this time, there was a rising national tide of violent racism when black soldiers returned from World War I were abused, lynched, and even burned alive. This horrific period would later be known as the Red Summer of 1919. So black Southerners began leaving the South by the thousands in search of economic opportunity and freedom from segregation and violence. The hope was this could be found in the North.

And this became the start of what we know today as the Great Migration. So Katie looked at young Rosetta and a light bulb went off. Within their church, Katie could be an evangelist preaching the word of God while Rosetta performed and sang and drawing people in. To Katie, this was a sign from God that Rosetta was ready for something bigger. Plus this was a way that they could make money.

So in 1921, when Rosetta was just six years old, she and Katie left Cotton Plant and moved to Chicago. And now let's pause for a quick little ad break.

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Your cash back really adds up. Welcome to Chicago in the early 1920s. At this time, the city was kind of lawless. Prohibition was in full swing, and speakeasies were the underground spots where thirsty Chicagoans could get some hooch.

Wink, wink. I guess hooch is alcohol. I was thinking it was pussay, but it's not. It's alcohol. The North Side Irish gang was at war with the Italian mafia called the Chicago Outfit, and both sides were paying off cops.

While all this was happening, black citizens and people of the Great Migration settled in the south side of the city, including Katie and Rosetta. And around this time, Katie starts to go by the name Ma Bell. As soon as they hit the streets of the Windy City, they stood out.

Rosetta would accompany Ma Bell while she would preach on the street corners and in church. Their first stop in the city was the Kojic Church, which was simply known as the 40th Street Church. And Rosetta splashed onto the 40th Street scene almost immediately because somebody would play the piano while Rosetta sat on top of it singing and playing the guitar.

People who saw Rosetta play were just in awe of how well she could play and how young she was, right? And they were calling her a singing and guitar playing miracle. I mean, it's not an overstatement to say Rosetta was a prodigy. Incredible.

In Chicago, Rosetta discovered music as a way to earn other people's approval. And not only that, other people's money. For Rosetta, this was when music became more than just a way to be spiritual. It was a means of survival. And while Rosetta sang at 40th Street, the church collected money from people visiting. At the end of the service, they'd put in an envelope and present it to Ma Bell. But Rosetta doesn't want to keep playing churches. I mean, she wants to go big time.

Namin' lights. Superstar. So around this time, Ma Bell unofficially becomes Rosetta's manager. Now, historians say that Rosetta didn't have a manager at this point, but Ma Bell would book performances, collect the cash, and make sure Rosetta was ready for the next day. So, I mean, it sounds like a manager to me. And as her momager, a very strict Ma Bell limited Rosetta's exposure to Chicago's booming secular music scene.

Because at this time, Rosetta was only singing spiritual music because according to Mabel and the Kojic congregation, that's what a good Pentecostal girl did. Around the time she was 15, Rosetta and her mom hit the road and traveled what was known as the gospel circuit. Basically a road trip for Jesus. Jesus!

Rosetta paid her dues performing everywhere from Pentecostal churches to tent meetings and revivals. She learned how to project her voice over the congregation, which was shouting, crying, and singing for the Lord. Now, during this road trip, Ma Bell was trying to save the sinners,

But to Rosetta, that didn't really matter. She just wanted people to get something from her music, be inspired, hear her voice, simple as that. But she also wanted to have some fun while she played. And this is where Rosetta's iconic guitar playing starts to take shape.

You see most guitarists at this time just strum some chords and hope for the best. Rosetta noticed this left a lot of dead space when they weren't singing. So she developed a new style of guitar playing where she would fill that dead space with individual notes to complement her voice in order to make her performances nonstop crowd pleasers. Now she was adding her own personality to the music, which became one of her iconic trademarks.

Rosetta got so good at picking the guitar, people said that she made her guitar talk. Remember how I described services at the Kozik church? Well, her guitar playing paralleled the religious practice of speaking in tongues, almost as if God was speaking through the instrument. Now, this style of playing made the guitar an extension of the person playing it.

And this technique was and is still copied pretty much by every major rock guitarist ever. Around this time in 1934, a 19-year-old Rosetta met a traveling preacher named Tommy Tharp. Rosetta met him while touring the gospel circuit with Ma Bell. They ended up getting married and performed the gospel circuit, but it led people to think of their relationship as more of a business transaction.

Yeah, so rumors are swirling that Tommy would beat and cheat on Rosetta, and this type of toxic relationship would follow Rosetta until her death. But true or not, these rumors would follow Rosetta, Ma Bell, and Tommy through the gospel circuit and all the way to Miami. Rosetta's home base became Miami Temple, which was the area's biggest Kojic church in the 1930s, and people were coming in big-ass numbers to listen to Rosetta.

The church broadcasted Sunday programs on a white radio station, so Rosetta's voice and guitar started reaching a wider audience. And soon enough, people all over began attending services at Miami Temple. All of this created a rift in the marriage between Rosetta and Tommy. Now whether it was because of the abuse or because Tommy was jealous, the marriage was on the rocks and Rosetta needed to escape.

Now that Rosetta knows her music has the ability to cross over to more mainstream audiences, she decides it's time to strike while the iron is hot. So Rosetta ends her marriage with Tommy, she packs her bags and she heads out to New York. Welcome to the Cotton Club in 1938, the heart of Broadway.

The Cotton Club was the place to be for Black performers. It came into its own amidst an explosion of Black American creativity for singers, writers, actors, and theater companies. But there was one problem. The Cotton Club had an explicit no Blacks allowed policy with the exception of visiting Black performers. Even the original stage was a replica of a

Jesus, take the goddamn wheel. Large white columns with weeping willows and slave quarters. Yeah, we're talking major racists over here. But the Cotton Club had a radio wire that broadcasted across the United States and internationally. So it was one of the best places for black musicians to be seen and heard. And because of that, black performers sucked it up.

I mean, if it meant that they would get some stage time. And one of these performers was our girl, Rosetta. Originally, the club signed Rosetta for just a two-week gig as an opening act, but right away she stood out with her unique style and unusual sound.

Rosetta would come on stage in a gown with a quiet print, her hair curled and no jewelry. She would crack some jokes before she grabbed her guitar and started ripping into a kind of guitar playing these white audiences had never seen before. It was new. It was different. What is this girl doing?

Rosetta shouted her vocals as if she were standing at the front of a church. Critics often struggled to find the right words to describe her. Some called her a swinger of spirituals and others labeled her a hymn swinging evangelist. What they were trying to say was that she was fucking rocking it. She was killing it. She was great. They loved her.

So very quickly, the Cotton Club gave her an even better contract that made her a full-blown headliner. And as a headliner, she gave herself a new name, Sister Rosetta Tharp. A star is born! So that same year, 1938, Rosetta inked a deal with a label called Decca Records and made a record.

On this record was the song Rock Me, and it showcased Rosetta's incredible guitar style and melodic blues mixed with her gospel roots. And holy shit did it launch Sister Rosetta into the stratosphere. She was just 23 years old at the time and became gospel's first real hit maker. Now, even though Sister Rosetta was going against church doctrine by performing in secular venues like nightclubs, she still did her best to not totally offend the church.

But it was precisely at this point when the church community started to push Rosetta away. The lyrics to "Rock Me" are pretty much in line with what you would expect from a love song. There's references to Rosetta being rocked by a cradle of love, a desire for two people to burn brighter, just really sexual language. I mean, according to them. But the twist is that the other person in the song is Jesus.

And the way Rosetta performed Rock Me made people think it was about sex. So a lot of the church crowd ostracized her. But Rosetta wasn't turning back. She had money and fame to go get. Not her fault they didn't understand the song. Jeez, you nasties. It's about Jesus.

You nasties. So by 1946, two things happened. The first was that Rosetta recorded a single called Strange Things Happening Every Day. Now this single became the first gospel record to hit number two on Billboard's race records charts, which today is known as the R&B charts. This specific song has been called the first rock and roll record ever.

And second, Rosetta survived another not-so-great marriage. There was a second guy somewhere in there, but he's really not important to this story. What is important is that out of all this, Rosetta was having relationships with both men and women. Although she was open about her sexuality within her inner circle, she kept the secret from the public. For good reason, because...

Surprise, people are still not that welcoming about it today, especially from the church, the Kocik congregation. Yeah. And there was one specific relationship that meant more to her than others. Was it Jesus? That same year, 1946, Rosetta went to a concert that would change the course of her career.

The headliner of the show invited a performer by the name of Marie Knight on stage. Rosetta would later say that hearing Marie play was musical love at first sight. I mean, puppy eyes. Marie was born in Newark, New Jersey in the early 1920s. And Marie, a natural born singer, had a couple of kids from an earlier marriage. After hearing her sing, Rosetta approached Marie with an offer to collaborate. She's like, girl, we should collab.

So they hopped in Rosetta's tour bus and hit the road. Over time, these two became very close. How close is unknown for sure, it's none of our damn business, but some say it was an open secret in the gospel community that Rosetta and Marie were lovers. So this duo was revolutionary. Two queer black women who toured by themselves, relied on no men, and took control of all their own business decisions?

all while they were continuing to perform Sister Rosetta's rock and roll sound? Groundbreaking information is happening. But then an unexpected tragedy struck. While on tour in California in the 1940s, Marie received a telegram stating that her mother and two children were killed in a fire.

All this grief and strain proved to be too much for Marie. So their tour came to an end and Rosetta and Marie split as a duo. Shortly after this, Rosetta's career took a bit of a hit as well. And not only was she facing backlash from the gospel community for giving into worldly desires, she wasn't putting out as many hits. Anyways, let's pause for an ad break.

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And we're back. So by now, it's the early 1950s, and Rosetta needed something big to bring her back into the limelight. Something that was going to turn heads and make people talk. That's when a couple promoters from Washington, D.C. approached Rosetta with an idea for a giant spectacle of a concert.

The promoters tell her that there's this venue called Griffith Stadium that has been used for sporting events and like big religious revivals. Now, unlike Ma Bell, Rosetta wasn't an evangelist, so she couldn't lead a revival.

But there is a religious event that Rosetta can be a star of. A splashy affair with amazing outfits and a stage where Rosetta can perform. That's when the idea hits them to combine a musical concert with a wedding. It was the PR stunt to end all PR stunts. Amazing.

But there's just one problem. Rosetta isn't engaged. So the promoters built it into the contract that she had just one year to find a man. This sounds like some kind of weird-ass movie, does it not? Sounds like one of those holiday Christmas movies.

So with the clock ticking, Rosetta heads back out on the road and this is where she meets a man named Russell Morrison. Now Russell was born in 1917 in Pittsburgh and like Rosetta, he'd grow up without his father in his life.

And as soon as he graduated from high school, he moved to Harlem. While he wasn't musical, he was drawn to the glamour of the jazz scene, so he did whatever he could to make himself useful to musicians. Now, people who knew Russell called him lazy and like a dreamer, schemer, but whether that's true or not, we know for sure he was willing to do whatever it took to live a life of glitz and glamour.

Rosetta had that and she needed a husband. So it was, I guess it was a perfect match. I don't want to, yeah. And then the big night arrives, July 3rd, 1951. Welcome to the wedding of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Russell Morrison. It's a hot and humid summer night in Washington, D.C. The city's in the middle of a mass transit strike. So trolleys and buses aren't moving. They're not going anywhere.

There's even a major league baseball game happening on the other side of town. But despite all this, 20,000 paying customers showed up to what was billed as the most elaborate wedding ever staged. Plus, the world's greatest spiritual concert.

That's how they advertised it. Because everyone knew the wedding was a sham, even the local preacher cracked jokes about whether or not Russell had enough money to buy the ring. So, wedding bells rang and Sister Rosetta officially married Russell. Just after they sealed the deal with a kiss, Rosetta, still in her wedding dress, strapped on her custom white electric guitar and proceeded to rock the hell out of those 20,000 fans.

So you're probably wondering, well, what the hell does this big fake wedding have to do with rock and roll, Bailey? Get to the damn point. Well, most people say the first major stadium concert in the United States was the Beatles' performance at Shea Stadium in 1965. And then some other people say that Janis Joplin, a badass musician in her own right, was the first American female stadium rocker.

But Janice was just seven years old when Sister Rosetta Tharp sold out a stadium. And surprise, surprise, it also happens to be 14 years before the Beatles ever did. And what did Janice and the Beatles have in common? Anyone? Any guess?

If you guessed white skin, you win a brand new understanding of the problem with the history of rock and roll. Remember how I said earlier that rock and roll came from rhythm and blues? I know you do because we're smart.

You're a good listener. Well, at the time, R&B was mainly performed by Black artists for Black listeners. And how do we know this? Well, Billboard, the music charting company, started tracking songs in 1940. There were three big categories, pop, country, and western. Oh, country and western. I'm sorry. That's like together. Okay.

and R&B. Every week, they published lists of the songs most consistently sold in record shops, requested in jukeboxes, and played by DJs. Now, here's the thing. The Billboard charting system assumed that the market was segregated on racial lines. But how would they know if something was a pop hit versus an R&B hit? Well, it all came down to where the songs were being sold and played.

If a store had mostly black customers, then it must be an R&B hit. They're making assumptions. And you know what they say about assumptions?

and they make an ass out of you and me. But then something interesting started happening. A black quartet named The Ink Spots had 14 songs hit the top of the Billboard pop charts. Given how Billboard rankings were set up, this meant white people weren't just listening to The Ink Spots, they loved them. So it dawned on music executives that not everyone buying R&B records were black. Shocking information.

But how did this realization translate onto what was happening on actual stages? I don't know. We have to pause for an ad break first. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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In the 1950s, a few musicians started picking up on Sister Rosetta Tharp's sound, which was now being called rock and roll. Chuck Berry,

Have you heard of him? Considered by almost everyone on the planet to be one of the greatest guitarists in rock history, is said to have been a huge Sister Rosetta Tharpe fan. Little Richard called Sister Rosetta his greatest influence. Maybe because his big break came when he was just 14 years old. Rosetta heard him singing one of her gospel songs and she invited him on stage to open for her at the Macon City Auditorium.

The rest is history. The point is, whenever the early history of rock and roll gets talked about, there's always a handful of names in the conversation, but none of them is Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

It should be, is what we're getting at here. Thank you. So around this time, the founder of Sun Records realized if he could find a white man to capture this sound, he could make a shit ton of money. We know this because he would say it to a secretary in bed, I guess just after sex talk. So Sun Records found their own white man who played, quote, unquote, black music.

And that white man, his name was Elvis freaking Presley. It's funny. Well, it's not funny. I'm sorry for saying that. But I was watching an Elvis biography the other day. And they even say it on camera over and over and over again. His manager was like, we wanted a white man who sang like a black man.

So stupid, isn't it? Like, geez louise. Anyways, Elvis Presley was born January 8th, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Sandy hair, blue eyed boy whose dad was serving three years in the Mississippi State Prison when he was born.

Great. Since mom couldn't afford to keep the house, she and her three-year-old moved in with relatives in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, this was in 1938, the same year Rosetta broke it big. But by all accounts, Elvis had a pretty stable childhood that he spent all in one place. Now, music was a constant in Elvis's life. He would listen to music in church and taught himself to play the church piano. And for his 11th birthday, his parents gave him a guitar.

So when he was a teenager, he started visiting the local Beale Street venues where he would watch black musicians play. These shows completely changed his life. And he would see artists like B.B. King rip the guitar, and he would hear other musicians sing better than he'd freaking ever heard singing. But he was the most captivated by none other than Sister Rosetta Tharpe's guitar-picking style.

When he was a teenager, he learned how to play her songs, Up Above My Head, This Train, and Down by the Riverside. He spent the year after high school working a day job and playing at small clubs at night. And Elvis got a call from the head of Sun Records. Now, this was like June 6, 1954. He wanted Elvis to sing a new song. And after some trial and error, they landed on That's Alright Mama.

It's a song. It became an instant hit and put Elvis on the map. Yay. But not really, because That's Alright was an old R&B song created by Black Delta Blues singer Arthur Crudup. Arthur didn't receive any money from the song's success. In fact, despite his music being a commercial success, Arthur struggled to even support his family. Later in life, he had a bunch of legal fights in order to win back his royalties, but he never got the cash.

Meanwhile, I don't even think sometimes it's about the cash, it's about the freaking credit as well. The cash and credit, thank you. Meanwhile, high school and college girls were going bonkers for Elvis, and his place at the top was solidified when television rolled around.

Suddenly, what a performer looked like became almost as important as the music itself. Elvis made his first television appearance on January 28th, 1956, and quickly became a regular fixture on American TV sets. When Elvis released his version of Hound Dog, he had another hit. And this was another problem because Hound Dog was first recorded by a black woman named Big Mama Thornton,

I fucking love her. You have to listen. There's videos on YouTube of her, like her live performances. Incredible. I wish I could just end it there. I love her. And because of his rise, the press dubbed him the king of rock and roll. Didn't matter how true it was. The name stuck. Elvis owes most of his success to a whole bunch of people who didn't get credit because without gospel, R&B, and Sister Rosetta, we wouldn't and don't have rock and roll.

Wait, so what happened to Rosetta? Good question. I'm glad you asked. Sister Rosetta toured the festival scene in Europe through the 1960s and early 70s. And her artistry, just like in the States, inspired an entirely new generation of music. Specifically, the British Invasion of the 1960s. Ever heard of it? The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who?

It was a huge deal and a lot of these bands loved Rosetta Tharpe. Unfortunately, history doesn't give her enough credit for it. Rosetta fell victim to the same eraser over there. A review of her 1970 performance at the American Folk Blues and Gospel Festival in London described Rosetta as a blacked up Elvis in drag. What the fuck, yeah, yeah.

Because history had already been rewritten and nobody knew that Sister Rosetta had actually come before Elvis. The same year Rosetta was described as a knockoff Elvis, she was diagnosed with diabetes and then she had a stroke. Her diabetes was so bad she had to have her entire leg amputated. And three years later in 1973, she passed away. Sister Rosetta laid in an unmarked grave from 1973 to 2008.

35 years. All because her shithead husband never bought her a headstone. But don't worry. After she died, he made sure to sell a bunch of her shit like a guitar in a mink coat.

Sad. But the thing is, like one of Rosetta's most famous songs says, can't no grave holds her down. During Rosetta's lifetime, she owned two homes, a Cadillac, a shed for all her gowns. She became the first musician to have a tour bus. The first musical act to sell out a stadium inspired the British rock invasion of the 60s. And she legit invented rock and roll as we know it. Sister Rosetta directly influenced the following artists. Ahem.

Clear's throat. Thank you. Elvis Presley. Chuck Berry. Johnny Cash. Jerry Lee Lewis. The Beatles. Carl Perkins. Little Richard. Jimi Hendrix. Eric Clapton. Jeff Beck. The Rolling Stones. Led Zeppelin. I mean, the list goes on, girl. Okay? Point is, no Rosetta, no rock. And she did all this while being a black woman in the United States. She fucking killed it.

And every year since 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame holds a big over-the-top induction ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio. Now, the hall has inducted all sorts of people for contributions to music over the years from lead singers and guitarists to artists who aren't performers, like producers and writers. And as of 2020, 888 inductees have been honored by that hall. Of that number, only 69 are women inductees.

Now that means just 8% of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are women. And not only is the Hall of Boys Club, it is getting increasingly white. Of course, right? Fuck. Less than one third of the artists in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are people of color. Now Sister Rosetta Tharp wasn't inducted until 2018, 45 years after her death. Okay, hold on. Let me close my book.

Because that is a story about rock and roll, but mainly about Rosetta Tharpe. She was a badass who changed music history, point blank period. And I don't know. I don't know what to say now. I think a lot of us are familiar with rock and roll, but a lot of us may not be familiar with Rosetta Tharpe. Correct? I didn't. I didn't know a damn thing. I was like, what the? Yeah. Incredible. Groundbreaking.

Amazing. Anyways, thank you everyone for hanging out with me and hopefully you learned something new like I did. Remember, don't be afraid to be a nosy little bitch and, you know, try and like figure out where things come from. That's how I always get these stories. Like, where do things come from? I'd love to hear your reactions to today's story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along and see what you're saying.

Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And also catch my murder mystery in makeup which drops on Mondays. Thank you so much for hanging out. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacobs, Dunya McNeely from 3Arts, Ed Simpson, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan. Writers Jed Bookout, Joy Scavuzzo, Kim Yageed. A special thank you to our historical consultant, Gail Wald, author of Shout, Sister Shout,

the untold story of rock and roll trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharp. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Goodbye.

30: The Woman who REALLY Started Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe 38:49 Share

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30: The Woman who REALLY Started Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe