Rock and Roll Started With Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe made history in the 1940s when she cranked the distortion up on her electric guitar, imbuing gospel standards with muscular grooves that would come to be called “rock and roll.” This is just some of her legacy.

Yola’s turn as Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a Hollywood rarity, an opportunity for new fans to discover a legacy once lost to time. Tharpe made history in the 1930s into the ’40s, at which point she cranked the distortion up on her electric guitar, imbuing gospel standards with muscular grooves that would come to be called rock and roll when Chuck Berry and Little Richard scored unforgettable hits indebted to her virtuosic fretwork. Tharpe’s innovative marriage of spiritual songs and secular sounds, and her collaborations with jazz and blues icons, impacted generations of players. Here’s a primer to some of the sounds and musicians she birthed.

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Chuck Berry

Photo: Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy

Raised a Minnesota Seventh-Day Adventist, young Prince Rogers Nelson took to any instrument he could find, writing his first songs on the family piano and learning guitar (and many, many other instruments.). His music sat spirituality and sensuality, and rock and gospel, in the same pew; on 1987’s Sign O’ the Times, the funky party anthem “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night” follows the Christian message song “The Cross.”

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D’angelo

The singer-songwriter — fittingly christened “R&B Jesus” by critic Robert Christgau as a credit to 2000’s Voodoo blend of louche funk, plush neo-soul, and pastoral fervor — learned his moves in the Virginia Pentecostal church. His father and grandfather were ordained, but the young singer discovered his ministry playing the piano. D’angelo’s organ skills suggest sex and salvation simultaneously; his vocals conjure the image of the Dixie Hummingbirds harmonizing in a smoky jazz club.

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Brittany Howard

When Sister Rosetta Tharpe was belatedly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, Alabama Shakes singer and guitarist Brittany Howard led the tribute, effortlessly mimicking the molten emotion of the 1938 Decca Records single “That’s All.” It was a no-brainer: Howard walks the same crossroads as Tharpe as a formidably talented queer Black woman singing about love and faith, unfettered by genre constraints.

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Yola

From her work with trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack to her stint in the band Phantom Limb to her recent solo albums, Bristol singer and guitarist Yola grasps the joyful, unpredictable elasticity of Black art throughout time and across culture, finding comfort in her place in that continuum. Her records slip between rustic folk and ruddy soul with a deep understanding of the varying histories at play. Embodying Tharpe and all she stood for, in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, won’t be the first time Yola’s lived in her shoes.

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