Rosetta Nubin was born in Arkansas in 1915 to cotton pickers Willis Atkis and Katie Bell Nubin; however most famously known as being the musician, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Her parents were singers, and her mother also played the mandolin. Rosetta was singing, playing guitar, and being hailed as a musical prodigy by the age of six. In 1921, she joined a traveling evangelical singing troupe alongside her mother. The two of them had settled in Chicago by the mid-1920s. In 1934, aged nineteen, she married Pentecostal minister Thomas Thorpe. She divorced Thorpe in 1938 and moved to New York City with her mother. She used the name Tharpe, a modified form of his surname, as her stage name for the rest of her life, despite remarrying twice.
Also in 1938, Tharpe got her first record deal with Decca Records as a gospel artist. She was an immediate hit, playing the Apollo and touring with Cab Calloway. Her style combined secular lyrics with gospel music and incorporated elements of jazz and blues. It was enormously popular throughout the 1940s and laid down many of the patterns that were later used in rock and roll standards.
In the late 1940s, when Tharpe was around thirty years old, she embarked upon an openly romantic and sexual relationship with fellow musician Marie Knight — a radical act at that time. The two toured together, recording many major hits. Tharpe’s bisexuality has been confirmed by Gayle Wald, who relates many stories of Tharpe’s promiscuity with both sexes in her 2007 biography, Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Knight and Tharpe eventually broke up, following the tragic deaths of Knight’s two children in a house fire. They had also decided to pursue different musical goals, so they split up their act. Tharpe married her manager, Russell Morrison, in 1950.
Tharpe’s music continued to draw large crowds into the 1950s, but not as large as before. Since her popularity was beginning to wane at home, she began touring abroad. Her 1964 tour with Muddy Waters was enthusiastically received, including by Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, who were present at the legendary Wilbraham Road train station concert in Manchester on 7 May of that year. Both musicians have often spoken of Tharpe’s profound influence on their musicianship and guitar-picking styles. Despite suffering increasing ill health from the 1960s onwards, Tharpe continued to play right up until her death in 1973.
Even though she is not a household name, many musicians have cited Tharpe’s influence. Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Bonnie Raitt, and Eric Clapton have all acknowledged that they are indebted to her trailblazing work. Her work has been preserved in the Library of Congress due to its cultural significance. In 2018, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a musical pioneer. Her blend of multiple genres, heavily distorted guitar sound, and commanding stage presence paved the way for an entire generation of musicians. Indeed, she is often referred to as the Godmother of Rock and Roll. And she was bi.