![]() By this time, she’d gone fully electric and was playing the guitar with a ferocity that foreshadows Townshend, Clapton, Beck, Page and Hendrix. It’s from the late ’50s through the ’60s that we are blessed with some incredible live footage of Rosetta singing and playing. These interval sets kicked off a whole movement in British music that directly led to the ‘blues boom’ of the 1960s. One of its leading lights was trombonist Chris Barber who had led a band that included Lonnie Donegan since the late ’40s.ĭuring Barber’s concerts, Donegan would play what became known as a ‘skiffle break’ where he’d perform songs by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly. In the UK, however, something else was going on in parallel with the new music emanating from across the pond: a vibrant and healthy scene for traditional jazz. Crossing the pondīy 1957, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and a host of others had firmly established rock ’n’ roll as the music of choice for ‘the kids’. Tharpe continued to perform in nightclubs and on tour, but the hit records had dried up. Similarly, on the gospel scene, the rise of Mahalia Jackson had a similar effect in making Rosetta sound old-fashioned, almost overnight. Regardless, she maintained this musical balancing act for the remainder of her career by which time it had become perfectly acceptable to combine the two.Īs the ’50s dawned, Tharpe, like so many of her trailblazing contemporaries, found her career on somewhat of a downturn as a new generation appeared and proceeded to convert her innovations into rock ’n’ roll. After all, gospel was where her heart and musical roots lay. Rosetta also made several traditional gospel records in tandem with her more R&B-flavoured output, a clear sign that she felt some degree of guilt over becoming so well known as a secular pop star. On these, and many other finely crafted records throughout the 1940s, Tharpe plays acoustically in a classic Delta style – each track allowing her guitar and voice to soar. This Train, Trouble In Mind, Shout Sister Shout, Nobody’s Fault But Mine and Strange Things Happening Every Day, her biggest hit, are just some of her recordings that are now acknowledged as groundbreaking and influential in those proto-rock ’n’ roll days. Breaking groundĪ stream of historically important recordings followed. But it was Rosetta who was the true pioneer. It was a full 16 years before Ray Charles got the credit for mixing sacred with secular with his seminal I Got a Woman record from 1955. ![]() The song was a huge hit and made Rosetta a star despite the controversy surrounding the recording, which, effectively, is a gospel song performed in a secular style. It’s a beautifully melodic solo full of subtle slides and string bends, and sounds as though it’s taken as much from country music as it has blues. Sister Rosetta truly was a force and highly influential in the electric guitar’s early days, a fact so often overlooked.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |