Sister Rosetta Tharpe - The Decca Singles, Vol. 1-5 (2019)

In celebration of her imminent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, Verve/UMe are bringing Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s vaunted catalogue into the digital age, making more than 200 songs available for download and streaming – most for the first time ever.

The initiative, which includes seven long out-of-print albums and all 130 singles she recorded for Decca between 1938 and 1956, began on March 30 with the release of three albums: 1951’s gospel hymns LP Blessed Assurance, originally on a Decca 10-inch LP and now expanded with three rare bonus tracks; an expanded edition of her acclaimed 1958 Decca collection, Gospel Train, with two rare bonus tracks; and her spirited 1960 self-titled album Sister Rosetta Tharpe, originally issued on MGM Records.

Over these next two weeks leading up to her induction on April 14, four additional essential Tharpe recordings and her Decca singles, divided into five volumes, will be released. The albums include expanded editions of her pioneering 1956 album Gospel Train (not to be confused with the 1958 Decca album of the same name), expanded with five bonus tracks including the non-LP single ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ and two previously unreleased performances, and her riveting 1959 live concert LP The Gospel Truth, bolstered by two unreleased tracks and two non-LP singles from the era, as well as the similarly named 1962 The Gospel Truth: All New! Her Greatest Gospel Hits, featuring brand new recordings of many of her best-known songs, and 1961’s Sister On Tour; the latter two were recorded for Verve. All albums, except the original Gospel Train (1956), are making their digital debut.

Following years of performing in churches across the country, first with her mother as traveling, singing missionaries when young Rosetta was a six-year-old guitar prodigy billed as a “singing and guitar playing miracle,” and later on her own as the star attraction, Tharpe’s recording career began in 1938 when she signed to Decca at age 23. Throughout the next two decades, the singer, songwriter and electrifying guitarist was incredibly prolific, touring incessantly and releasing a steady stream of 78s and 45s consisting of some of her most immensely popular and influential songs.

While some of these songs have ended up on various CDs over the years, both official and unofficial, the majority of them have never been released digitally. The Complete Decca Singles Volumes 1-5 collects all of Tharpe’s singles together for the first time and presents them in chronological order by release date with the corresponding B-side. An incredible 90% of these songs will be available digitally for the first time while only 13 of them overlap with the album releases.

Vol. 1, featuring tracks from 1938-1941, includes Tharpe’s earliest recordings including ‘The Lonesome Road’ and Thomas Dorsey’s ‘Rock Me,’ which established her as an overnight sensation and one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists. Rolling Stone describes the song as a “transformed spiritual…recorded with her soaring held notes and sexy growls back in 1938 – when the latter-day King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley, was still a toddler.” Other songs include the well-known ‘This Train’ and ‘That’s All’ and several featuring Tharpe performing with big band leader Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra on such secular songs as ‘Shout, Sister, Shout.’

Vol. 2, with tracks from 1942-1946, includes her 1945 hit collaboration with boogie-woogie pianist Sam Price, ‘Strange Things Happening Every Day,’ the first gospel record to cross over and become a hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard’s “race chart,” now known as R&B. The song has been cited as an important precursor to rock and roll. Other sides include the jazzy ‘Two Little Fishes And Five Loaves of Bread,’ ‘Jonah’ and the evangelical early blues of ‘Singing In My Soul,’ all with the Sam Price Trio.

Vol. 3, covering 1947-1949, collects a number of bluesy spirituals made with Tharpe’s contemporary Marie Knight and the Sam Price Trio such as ‘Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air,’ ‘Didn’t It Rain’ and ‘My Journey To The Sky.’ Tharpe is joined by her mother Katie Bell Nubin on the gospel rave up ‘Ninety-Nine And A Half Won’t Do.’ Vol. 4, featuring her Decca singles from 1949-1953 and Vol. 5, from 1954-1956, includes more collaboration with Marie Knight and The Sam Price Trio as well as vocal group The Anita Kerr Singers, quartet The Southwinds and country singer Red Foley, showcasing her eclectic career.