2015 Term 3, Week 9: Who were the best women guitarists?

We have learnt about stringed instruments in the orchestra, and learnt about guitars and famous acoustic and classical guitarists. So far all the guitarists we've learnt about have been men, but did you know that some of the most influential guitarists have been women?  When you  see and hear them playing you may think that they sound like a male guitarist you have seen and heard, but did you know that some of the most famous singers and guitarists were influenced by these women - who did this music first?

Because some of these videos and recordings are so old, the quality of the picture and sound is fairly poor - by our expectations today - but I'm sure you will enjoy them, just the same.

 

Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing Up Above My Head   
See "Songs We Sing" for lyrics.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She was most popular in the 1930s and 1940s but has influenced a lot of the most famous guitarists since then - including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Johnny Cash, Meatloaf, Tina Turner and Little Richard.

She was a gospel singer first and included rock guitar accompaniment. She has been called “the original soul sister” and “the godmother of rock and roll”. Her music was a mix (or “cross-over” ) of pop, gospel, blues and rock and roll.

She was born Rosetta Nubin in 1915 in Arkansas, USA. Her parents were cotton pickers and her father was also a singer. Tharpe's mother was a singer, mandolin player, evangelist and preacher in a church which encouraged music and dancing in praise and allowed women to preach. Tharpe began singing and playing the guitar from the age of four and joined her mother singing in a travelling band.

She married a preacher called Thomas Thorpe, and changed her stage name to Sister Rosetta Tharpe after the marriage ended.

In 1931 Tharpe became a successful recording artist, with many songs recorded over the next years. She continued to perform at concerts and night clubs and many of her church-going gospel fans were quite shocked when she performed with blues and jazz musicians and dancers. People were not used to seeing women guitarists then either.

She travelled round Europe and Britain and one of her most unusual concerts was a concert at an old train station - in the rain - with her on one side of the tracks and the audience on the other.

1n 1970 she had a stroke and then she had a leg amputated because of diabetes. Sister Rosetta Tharpe died in 1973 after another stroke and was buried in Philadelphia. In 2007 she was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 2008 a concert was held to raise funds for a gravestone for her grave.

A very short video talking about how Elvis Presley and other legendary musicians were influenced by  Sister Rosetta Tharpe 

This week's tongue twister: Selfish Shellfish

Check out the way some of the most famous composers drew treble clefs (above).

Scroll down to last week's blog for some notation games.

 Follow this link to learn about notation - the names of the notes we use in music. 

Here's another way to learn notes on the space spell FACE.  
Here's some mnemonics  to help learn the  notes on the lines. 

Here's  fun song about the treble clef, in the style of a '50s rock ballad.  

This week's unusual use of a guitar . . .