'Swing in her Spirituals': Gayle Wald on Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

In this week’s episode, Tim and Jeremy welcome writer and academic Gayle Wald to the show to tell us about the life and times of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Christened on social media ‘the queer black woman who invented rock’n’roll’, yet derided in 1970 as ‘a blacked up Elvis in drag’, Sister Rosetta’s story disrupts the received narrative of rock history. We hear about her religious upbringing, hitting the road with her evangelist mother; playing in the Cotton Club, the Decca Records studios, and from the centre field of a football stadium (in her wedding dress!); and being feted by Johnny Cash at the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

Sister Rosetta’s story concerns misogyny, Pentecostalism, the evolution of the electric guitar, gossip, Little Richard and more, and Gayle is the perfect person to share it with us.

This is an edited version of the full interview. To hear more about Sister Rosetta as well as about Gayle’s book on the television programme ‘Soul!’ - a groundbreaking piece of public broadcasting that brought black thinkers, activists and musicians to the TV screen - and her forthcoming work on the eminent children’s musician Ella Jenkins, become a patron.

Gayle Wald is a professor of English and American Studies at George Washington University and a Guggenheim Fellow. She is the author of 'Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in U.S. Literature and Culture’, ‘Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe’ and ‘It's Been Beautiful: Soul! and Black Power Television’.
Produced by Matt Huxley.
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Produced by Matt Huxley.
Tracklist:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Rock Me
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Up Above My Head

Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight - Didn’t It Rain
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Strange Things Happening Every Day
Mahalia Jackson - Move On Up a Little Higher
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Move On Up a Little Higher