When you talked about Rosetta Tharpe you talked about a ball of energy.
This woman would come out on the stage she’d have people laughing, she’d talk to them in a way that it was almost like she was related to them. And when she finished her act, they were standing. You know, they would love this woman. And she was a lovable person. I mean she was an approachable person. Even though she was a diva too, you know, because she did play the diva role. —Ira Tucker
Way before Elvis Presley and pre-Jimi Hendrix, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was shaking, rattling , and rolling with her electric guitar at a time when such a thing was unimaginable.
Little Richard, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley all cited Sister Rosetta Tharpe as an influence on their careers, and Bob Dylan, on his Theme Time Radio Hour, offered, “She was a big, good-looking woman and divine, not to mention sublime and splendid. She was a powerful force of nature–a guitar-playing, singing evangelist.”
In Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one can see some of the showmanship that Stevie Ray Vaughan would later incorporate into his performance, and traces of technique that Keith Richards would make a fortune from. She is there in the background in 1988 when Joni Mitchell sang “Study war no more” on her album Chalk Mark in the Rain Storm, and when Bob Dylan sang “Some trains don't pull no gamblers/No midnight ramblers like they did before” on Time Out of Mind in 1997, and when the Rolling Stones covered “You Gotta Move” on Sticky Fingers in 1971.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the most influential unsung hero of rock & roll and it's a insult that she isn't in the Rock & Roll Hall Fame.
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