Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Rosetta Tharpe


Rosetta Tharpe

Rosetta Tharpe was born March 20, 1921 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas; the daughter of Katie Bell Nubin, a traveling missionary and shouter in the classic gospel tradition known throughout the circuit as "Mother Bell," she was a prodigy, mastering the guitar by the age of six. In time the family relocated to Chicago, where Tharpe began honing her unique style; blessed with a resonant vibrato, both her vocal phrasing and guitar style drew heavy inspiration from the blues, and she further aligned herself with the secular world with a sense of showmanship and glamour unique among the gospel performers of her era. Signing to Decca in 1938, Tharpe became a virtual overnight sensation; her first records were smash hits, and quickly she was performing in the company of mainstream superstars. She led an almost schizophrenic existence, remaining in the good graces of her core audience while also appealing to her growing white audience.
During World War II, Tharpe recorded V-Discs for American soldiers overseas. In 1944, she began recording with boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price; their first collaboration, "Strange Things Happening Every Day," even cracked Billboard's race records Top Ten, a rare feat for a gospel act and one which she repeated several more times during the course of her career. In 1946 she teamed with the Newark-based Sanctified shouter Madame Marie Knight. In the early ’50 they cut a handful of straight blues sides; their fans were outraged. Knight made a permanent leap into secular music, with little success. Tharpe remained a gospel artist, although her credibility and popularity were seriously damaged. Her record sales dropped off and her live engagements became fewer. Many purists took Tharpe's foray into the mainstream as a personal affront. She spent over a year touring clubs in Europe. Tharpe's comeback was slow but steady, and by 1960 she had returned far enough into the audience's good graces to appear at the Apollo Theatre. She continued touring even after suffering a major stroke in 1970, dying in Philadelphia on October 9, 1973.

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