Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe records were pouring into the collection by the mid-60s and have always been a priority ever since. This scarce 78 album is her first, from 1945. Like Memphis Minnie, this woman could not only sing up a pre-Aretha storm but then tear it up, down and over on the guitar. She soon acquired an electric and continued to record well into the LP era.

She became the first gospel singer to become really popular and much to the chagrin of the most of the church crowd, took the Gospel into the night club circuit a generation before Ray Charles and Sam Cooke started messing with de Lawd’s music and making it into the devil’s own blues, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll.

This copy is perfect except for a small amount of writing in fountain pen on the inside front cover. Fortunately, it’s her autograph, so it doesn’t devalue the record as much as if it was anybody else’s scribbling. Listen!