“A queer black woman invented rock-and-roll”: Rosetta Tharpe, memes, and memory practices in the digital age

Paint it White: Segregationist Logics in Advertising and the Electric Guitar

“…Black celebrity guitarists such as Charlie Christian, Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry, and Jimi Hendrix were relatively commercially successful and influential to dozens of aspiring guitarists in the middle decades of the 20th century (Hellmann 1973; Tolinski and Perna 2016; Waksman 2001; Wald 2020). Furthermore, Black Celebrity guitarists exclusively used Gibson and Fender instruments during the first two decades of the instrument's surging popularity in the United States.…”

“…Chicago) parallels the development of electric blues and the emergence of the first slate of widely influential Black celebrity guitarists, including Muddy Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Grazian 2005). While Muddy Waters constructed the sonic and performative qualities that would become synonymous with the instrument (Waksman 2001), Sister Rosetta Tharpe pioneered the use of loud distorted sounds as she provided powerful rhythmic accompaniment for her singing voice (Wald 2020). The commercial popularity and cross‐over appeal of artists like Waters and Tharpe influenced subsequent generation of young guitarists in the United States and the United Kingdom, many of whom would go onto to become celebrity guitarists in subsequent decades (Hellmann 1973; Tolinski and Perna 2016).…”

“…Sales of electric guitars skyrocketed following the popularity of rock n' roll music and dominated all musical instrument sales in the 1960s and 1970s (Kraft 2004). While the instrument's invention is credited mainly to European immigrants and their descendants (Smith 2018; Tolinski and Perna 2016), the guitarists responsible for many of its sonic, performative, and artistic achievements were Black (Hellmann 1973; Waksman 2001; Wald 2020). Furthermore, the popularity of Black celebrity guitarists within the American commercial music field paralleled the ascendence of the electric guitar as a mass‐produced cultural object (Hamilton 2016; Tolinski and Perna 2016).…”

“…While the vast majority of instruments featured belonged at one point to White male celebrity guitarists, the entrance and exit of the exhibit featured two highly influential Black American celebrity electric guitarists: Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix. Their placement as bookends for the exhibit signals a recognition of recent academic scholarship and popular literature, which celebrate the significance and influence of Black celebrity guitarists on the ascendance of the White male “guitar hero” (Hellmann 1973; Tolinski and Perna 2016; Waksman 1999; Wald 2020).…”