One of the most highly influential, though little known, innovators of the electric guitar is gospel musician, Sister Rosetta Tharpe (c.1915-1973). Her playing techniques and showmanship have been cited as major influences for rock artists like Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix (Kaplan, 2016). Rock n’ roll guitar riffs can be traced to Tharpe’s playing as early as the 1930s, and it can even be argued that her ostentatious performances contributed highly to the positive reception of a "raw" gospel sound in the wider public. This, in turn, became the foundation for rock n’ roll.

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Throughout the 1930s and 40s Tharpe was a successful star, selling out shows and performing on national television (Cskay, 2014). She could draw a crowd upwards of 17,000 people in Atlanta, and even staged her third wedding in front of a crowd of 20,000 in Washington D.C. - after which, she picked up her guitar and turned the wedding into a live concert (Washingtontian, 2007). A devoutly religious woman raised by an Evangelical mother, Tharpe used music as her personal connection to God. She is remembered by her friends as a strong woman, capable of overcoming adversity: both as a Black woman on the road in the 1940s and as a woman able to find independence after leaving an abusive spouse (Cskay, 2014). Tharpe’s electric guitar playing was an authentic expression of her individual goals as a musician, and does not reflect mainstream “ideals” later attributed to the instrument. As her biographer notes, history has failed to see “the Black woman behind the white young man” in rock n’ roll (Csaky, 2014). Given her star status and influence on many high profile artists, why might she still be absent from academic discussion of rock n’ roll and the electric guitar?

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Bringing Tharpe into the discussion creates an upheaval of the sentiment that the electric guitar is a product of white male ingenuity because there’s nothing to which her playing can be compared. She played the guitar as a means of connecting with God and the African American community; her playing is authentic to her experiences. Perhaps then, the ideal of the electric guitar is not conformity or patriarchy, but simply self-expression. Through looking at her career, we can see that women do not always latch on to male pioneered techniques, and that, in fact, it is possible for a woman to contribute something entirely unique based on her individual perspective. Tharpe’s experience as an African American female guitarist is not conducive to the story of “the real rock ‘n rollers”, and therefore, her erasure is of little notice (Mahon, 2).

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Tharpe was not the only woman at this time to make a prominent career out of playing the instrument. Bo Diddley’s lead guitarist, Peggy Jones, blues guitarist, Memphis Minnie, and country musician, Bonnie Guitar, all were present in this era, with little historical recollection. To discuss guitar techniques without looking at these women misses an entire section of the history of the instrument. As I will discuss more in the context of rock and punk music, there becomes a common mindset that women are incapable of playing or are the antithesis of what makes a rock star - despite the fact that a woman set the precedent for the types of sounds and showmanship that influenced the genre! Exclusion of women from history creates this illusionary ideal, which is highly evidenced by the career of Tharpe. Adding her career to discussion of the guitar can not only help to blur some of the stark gender lines created through discussion of the instrument, but also inspire more young women to play by asserting that the technology is theirs too.