Before Elvis, before Chuck Berry, before Little Richard shook the walls of popular music, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was already there, plugging in an electric guitar, blending gospel with raw rhythm, and creating the sound that would become rock and roll.

In this episode, we trace the extraordinary life of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, from her childhood in the Church of God in Christ to her rise as a groundbreaking performer who shattered musical, racial, gender, and cultural barriers. We explore how a queer Black Pentecostal woman from Arkansas carried sacred music into secular spaces, transformed the electric guitar into a weapon of joy and rebellion, and directly influenced legends like Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and the British rock generation that followed.

We also dig into the mechanics of her sound: her thum ...