{"id":13981,"date":"2019-10-15T07:49:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T11:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=13981"},"modified":"2019-10-15T13:58:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T17:58:30","slug":"rosetta-tharpe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/10\/15\/rosetta-tharpe\/","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovering African-American Rock And Roll Pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRebelling against constraint, she let her voice out in \u2018Rock Me\u2019 and \u2018That\u2019s All,\u2019 and left the house ecstatic,\u201d The New York Times reported when Sister Rosetta Tharpe performed during the \u201cFrom Spirituals to Swing\u201d program at New York\u2019s Carnegie Hall in December 1939. \u201cSister Tharpe is as good as ever in combining jazz and religion without offending either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really used that influence of her love of guitar and piano to reinvent gospel music and to establish what rock and roll became,\u201d says Pascale Florestal, director of a new production of George Brant\u2019s 2016 jukebox musical biography \u201cMarie and Rosetta.\u201d <\/a>Boston\u2019s Front Porch Arts Collective\u2014devoted to representing more stories of the African diaspora and having more folks of color producing the shows, on the stage, and in the audience\u2014is co-producing the show with Greater Boston Stage Company at its theater in Stoneham from Oct. 17 to Nov. 10, 2019.<\/p>\n

Since Tharpe died, in her late 50s, in 1973, her achievements have been largely forgotten. \u201cWe don\u2019t know her story. I didn\u2019t know anything about Rosetta Tharpe until I was given the script,\u201d Florestal says. \u201cThese important people in history, mostly people of color, their contributions are erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cMarie<\/a>
\u201cMarie and Rosetta” is being co-produced by Boston\u2019s Front Porch Arts Collective and Greater Boston Stage Company at its theater in Stoneham from Oct. 17 to Nov. 10, 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The play\u2014along with Gayle Wald’s 2007 biography \u201cShout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe\u201d and Tharpe\u2019s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a> just last year\u2014are part of an effort to recover her achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first gospel singers to gain wide recognition outside the Negro churches of the Deep South \u2026 She was criticized by some Harlem ministers for putting to much motion as well as emotion into her singing. She denied this,\u201d The New York Times said when she died.<\/p>\n