Live in France by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
While gospel music is at the root of 1950s R&B and influenced Elvis, few gospel singers have been included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sister Rosetta Tharpe (inducted posthumously in 2018) deserves the honor. Unlike many gospel performers who kept blues and vernacular music at arm’s length, Tharpe embraced the electric guitar and the rhythms pouring from the rural South into Chicago’s South Side.
As described in the booklet accompanying this previously unreleased concert recording, we have Great Britain’s love for American music to thank for rescuing Tharpe from oblivion. Having fallen out of favor with gospel audiences (who may have felt she crossed too many musical rivers), Tharpe was invited by British jazzman Chris Barber to tour the U.K. with him in 1957. She joined a wave of Black blues singer-guitarists that washed across the British Isles and from there to the Continent—Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton among them.
Tharpe was distinct from that cohort, not so much for her music but her lyrics, espousing faith in Jesus as her keeper and guide, a helper in time of need. For most of this 1966 concert in the southern French city of Limoges, it’s just Tharpe’s electric guitar, taping feet and spirited vocals, echoing the Pentecostal ecstasy that forged her but set to the rhythms that moved rock and roll. The prevailing mood on this set is joyous, even when she warns of the danger of straying from the righteous path.
Get Live in France: The 1966 Concert in Limoges at Amazon here.
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