Sister Rosetta Tharpe

小簡介
如果你看過她的”Down By The Riverside”的影音資料就會明白這個女人是多么與眾不同，她站在一堆男人面前大聲歌唱，男人們?yōu)樗槌?，為她歡呼鼓掌。她拿著一把鐵吉他 恣意地?fù)芘?，熱情高昂得屹立于那個男人統(tǒng)治的世界里。
即使在和樂團(tuán)合作或和一些知名的樂手合作，她都顯得那么突出，任何人在她面前都會遜色。她和爵士樂隊合作演唱福音歌曲;她把搖擺樂Swings帶入教堂引起宗教界人士的恐慌，她喜歡做的事在當(dāng)時都是那么突兀，她就是這樣一個天不怕地不怕的女人。
對于人們的恐慌，有次她對福音領(lǐng)域的權(quán)威Tony Heilbut說:”There’s something about the gospel blues that’ so deep the world cannot stand it?！?
早期，其實有很多Blues女歌手就開始演唱福音歌曲，但沒有一個人象Roese Tharpe那樣讓人印象深刻，除了作風(fēng)特立獨行外，她充滿熱情和無與倫比的感染力都讓她與眾不同，極為突出。
她于1915年出生于美國的Arkansas州，6歲時隨著全家人搬到了Chicago。由于母親是個虔誠的福音傳道士，年幼時，Sister Rosetta常常陪著母親出席一些教堂的活動和宗教儀式。從小耳濡目染，對福音音樂的理解使得她成年后的演唱極具殺傷力。她之后和教堂里的牧師結(jié)了婚，還和他的丈夫母親組成了三重唱在全美的教堂進(jìn)行巡演。
1936年，她搬到了紐約并定居下來。2年后她加入了當(dāng)時有名的滑稽劇”Cab Calloway”的演出。同一年，她的第一張唱片問世了。在之后的作品里，她出色的才華引起了John Hammond的注意，1938年的這場”Spirituals to Swing Concert” 讓很多歌手一夜成名，當(dāng)然Rosetta也不會例外。這首”Strange Things Happening Everyday”出品于1944年12月22日，是她影響力最大的一只作品，在這個作品里，她將福音樂和藍(lán)調(diào)完美的結(jié)合在一起，并加入了爵士樂的元素，讓人聽出耳油。
若要問到她到底有多偉大，有件事可以說明一切，在Johnny Cash去世后的一年，著名的節(jié)目主持人Larry King問他的女兒Rosanne Cash誰是她父親最喜歡的歌手，答案就是Sister Rosetta Tharpe。她不僅是Johnny Cash的最愛，也是Elvis Presley，Jerry Lee Lewis的最愛。
by Jason AnkenyAlongside Willie Mae Ford Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe is widely acclaimed among the greatest Sanctified gospel singers of her generation; a flamboyant performer whose music often flirted with the blues and swing, she was also one of the most controversial talents of her day, shocking purists with her leap into the secular market — by playing nightclubs and theatres, she not only pushed spiritual music into the mainstream, but in the process also helped pioneer the rise of pop-gospel. Tharpe was born March 20, 1921 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas; the daughter of Katie Bell Nubin, a traveling missionary and shouter in the classic gospel tradition known throughout the circuit as Mother Bell, she was a prodigy, mastering the guitar by the age of six. At the same time she attended Holiness conventions alongside her mother, performing renditions of songs including The Day Is Past and Gone and I Looked Down the Line.In time the family relocated to Chicago, where Tharpe began honing her unique style; blessed with a resonant vibrato, both her vocal phrasing and guitar style drew heavy inspiration from the blues, and she further aligned herself with the secular world with a sense of showmanship and glamour unique among the gospel performers of her era. Signing to Decca in 1938, Tharpe became a virtual overnight sensation; her first records, among them Thomas A. Dorseys Rock Me and This Train, were smash hits, and quickly she was performing in the company of mainstream superstars including Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman. She led an almost schizophrenic existence, remaining in the good graces of her core audience by recording material like Precious Lord, Beams of Heaven and End of My Journey while also appealing to her growing white audience by performing rearranged, uptempo spirituals including Didnt It Rain and Down by the Riverside.During World War II, Tharpe was so popular that she was one of only two black gospel acts — the Golden Gate Quartet being the other — to record V-Discs for American soldiers overseas; she also toured the nation in the company of the Dixie Hummingbirds, among others. In 1944, she began recording with boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price; their first collaboration, Strange Things Happening Every Day, even cracked Billboards race records Top Ten, a rare feat for a gospel act and one which she repeated several more times during the course of her career. In 1946 she teamed with the Newark-based Sanctified shouter Madame Marie Knight, whose simple, unaffected vocals made her the perfect counterpoint for Tharpes theatrics; the duos first single, Up Above My Head, was a huge hit, and over the next few years they played to tremendous crowds across the church circuit.However, in the early 50s Tharpe and Knight cut a handful of straight blues sides; their fans were outraged, and although Knight soon made a permanent leap into secular music — to little success — Tharpe remained first and foremost a gospel artist, although her credibility and popularity were seriously damaged. Not only did her record sales drop off and her live engagements become fewer and farther between, but many purists took Tharpes foray into the mainstream as a personal affront; the situation did not improve, and she spent over a year touring clubs in Europe, waiting for the controversy to die down. Tharpes comeback was slow but steady, and by 1960 she had returned far enough into the audiences good graces to appear at the Apollo Theatre alongside the Caravans and James Cleveland. While not a household name like before, she continued touring even after suffering a major stroke in 1970, dying in Philadelphia on October 9, 1973.