Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Cotton Plant

1915 – 1973

Long before rock and roll had a name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was playing it. Born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she grew up inside the energetic musical world of the Church of God in Christ. Her mother was an evangelist, singer, and mandolin player, and Rosetta began singing and playing guitar in church while still a small child. By age six, she was already traveling and performing with her mother.

What made Tharpe extraordinary was the way she erased boundaries. She combined the emotional force of gospel with blues phrasing, jazz rhythms, showmanship, and a fiercely amplified electric guitar style that anticipated rock musicians who would follow decades later. Signed to Decca Records in 1938, she became one of gospel music’s first major recording stars and one of its first performers to reach a broad secular audience. Songs such as “Rock Me,” “Up Above My Head,” and “Strange Things Happening Every Day” brought sacred music into conversation with the developing sounds of rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Tharpe was also a formidable guitarist at a time when few women, particularly Black women, were publicly recognized as instrumental virtuosos. Her playing influenced generations of artists, including Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and many others who helped define rock and roll. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted her in 2018, describes Tharpe as rock and roll’s first great female guitar hero.

Arkansas has honored her legacy with the Sister Rosetta Tharpe Memorial Highway running through her native Cotton Plant. Her story reaches from a small Arkansas church community to concert halls and stages around the world, making Sister Rosetta Tharpe not merely an influence on rock and roll, but one of the musicians who helped make it possible.