Sister Rosetta Tharpe moved in the spaces between binaries. She introduced white audiences to black music. She brought the church to the nightclub, blurring the lines between the sacred and the secular. Some said the guitarist/singer "played like a man," an inarticulate statement meant to evoke the strength and power she possessed, attacking her distorted electric guitar in holy reverie, as if that wildness wasn't something a woman was capable of. Her songs were charged with carnal energy, but infused with spiritual depth. Tharpe's influence on . . .
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