Here's a video clip of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, playing her Gibson SG and performing Down By The Riverside on the Chicago-based television show TV Gospel Time, sometime in the early to mid-Sixties: [download video, 6mb mpeg file or stream it from youtube here]
This clip was shot well after the peak of Tharpe's career in the 30's and the 40's, but it's the first chance I've had to see video of another one of my personal guitar heroes. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one of the first recording artists to play lead guitar, starting to do so in the 1920's. She started playing guitar at the age of four, billed as "Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar playing miracle," as she performed at tent revivals throughout the south.
I couldn't find out much about this clip - it's from the enhanced audio CD of Shout Sister Shout, a Tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and it was part of the weekly TV show TV Gospel Time, which aired nationally in the 1950s and 60s. Our own Kevin Nutt aired this track and a batch of other TV Gospel Time recordings on this May 2002 edition of his great show Sinner's Crossroads.
Regardless of the exact date of this performance, this was a period of Tharpe's career when she was attempting a U.S. comeback, after alienating her religious fans with her secular music, and then alienating her white fans with the blues sides she cut in the 1950s. She suffered a stroke in 1970 and died in 1973.
Great video thanks a lot for pointing that out ! Sister Rosetta is such a great performer and quite a dual personnality 'cause she has one step in the Gospel and the other in the Blues. It is similar to Son House which also played a lot of Gospel while he was quite a real delta performer !
Thanks again !
Posted by: Jipes | March 26, 2006 at 02:32 PM
I can't tell you the feeling of euphoria I got watching a woman in her finest Sunday dress break into a pretty ripping guitar solo. If there were more women like her around, I might actually go to church. Thanks for the video!
Posted by: BridgeBurner | March 26, 2006 at 05:15 PM
A great but terribly brief clip of Tharpe a-strummin' appears in the film Amelie.
Posted by: mike | March 27, 2006 at 10:23 AM
And a bit of Sharpe playing appears in one of the episodes of the Blues documentary series produced by Scorsese. This is fabulous though!
Posted by: Krys O. | March 27, 2006 at 04:06 PM
Jeez....that guitar solo is like a love filled bolt of lightning that tears through your heart.......
Posted by: Jeffersonic | March 27, 2006 at 11:14 PM
great video!
thnks;)
Posted by: ukraine girl | August 18, 2006 at 05:15 PM
Praise the Lord! The sister seriously shreds.
Restores my faith
Posted by: Rob | November 05, 2006 at 11:18 PM
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was the BOSS,then and the boss now her voice is clear and sharpe and you can understand every word she says. May God, rest her soul
Daniel Hameed
[email protected]
Posted by: | June 28, 2008 at 02:12 AM
She Rocks.
That's not an SG, it's a Le Paul Custom. They started as a Les Psaul, but les din't want to endorse it, so it changed to SG.
Posted by: Barack Obama | November 24, 2009 at 09:23 PM
The guitar is not a Gibson SG. It's a 1961 Les Paul Custom. For a few years in the early 60's Gibson sold that body with the Les Paul name on it but Les Paul didn't like it so they went back to the single cut body and the double cut went into hiatus for a short time before returning with a few changes as the SG.
Posted by: Joe | February 23, 2010 at 08:56 PM
(http://signon.org/sign/put-sister-rosetta-tharpe)
Posted by: Greg Rasheed | March 21, 2013 at 10:32 PM