Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Me: Remembering Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Profound Effect on Music on Her 110th Birthday

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is like a golden thread woven through a colorful tapestry of music history. In her own right, as one of gospel’s first major superstars in the 1930s and 1940s, her music stands alone and glimmers like gold dust sprinkled on everything that follows. Tharpe, a Black, queer woman, who created rock ‘n roll — or at least changed it forever when she added reverb to gospel and blues music in the 1950s — would have been 110 today, March 20.