A godmother is a female godparent in the Christian tradition; she is present at the christening of the child and promises to see that the child is raised to be a Christian. She may also offer mentorship and/or claim legal guardianship of the child as her own if needed due to circumstances.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. She was the first great recording star of gospel music, and was among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm and blues and rock and roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll". She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eric Clapton.
The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and is sometimes grouped with novelists such as Richard Powers and Alan Lightman, who create fiction that is knowledgeable of, and sympathetic toward, science.
Wynona Merceris Carr was an American gospel, R&B and rock and roll singer-songwriter, who recorded as Sister Wynona Carr when performing gospel material.
"Up Above My Head" is a gospel song of traditional origin, first recorded in 1941 by The Southern Sons, a vocal group formed by William Langford of the Golden Gate Quartet. In the version that is now the best-known, it was recorded in 1947 by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight as a duo.
Bebe Miller is an American choreographer, dancer, and director.
Abner Wingate Jay was an American multi-instrumentalist from Georgia, best known for performing eccentric, blues infused folk music as a one man band. His idiosyncratic lyrics and style have led some to consider his work outsider music; he considered himself to be "the last working Southern black minstrel".
"Strange Things Happening Every Day" is a traditional African American spiritual.
Michael K. Honey is an American historian, Guggenheim Fellow and Haley Professor of Humanities at the University of Washington Tacoma in the United States, where he teaches African-American, civil rights and labor history.
James J. Kriegsmann was a celebrity and theatrical photographer who worked from 1929 to the 1980s.
Alan Maynard Wald is an American professor emeritus of English Literature and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and writer of 20th-century American literature who focuses on Communist writers; he is an expert on the American 20th-Century "Literary Left."
Yolanda Claire Quartey, known professionally as Yola or Yola Carter, is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Her debut studio album Walk Through Fire (2019) received critical acclaim and earned her four Grammy Award nominations, including Best New Artist. Her follow-up, Stand for Myself (2021), received similar acclaim and earned her two more Grammy nominations. Yola made her acting debut in 2022, portraying "godmother of rock n roll" Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrman’s biopic Elvis.
Susan Laura Mizruchi is professor of English literature and the William Arrowsmith Professor in the Humanities at Boston University. Her research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, religion and culture, literary and social theory, literary history, history of the social sciences, and American and Global Film and TV. Since 2016, she has served as the director of the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
Gospel Train is a studio album by gospel and R&B artist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, recorded in July 1956 and released in December the same year. Tharpe is accompanied on vocals by the traditional black gospel quartet the Harmonizing Four on some of the songs. The album was noted as part of Tharpe's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
John S. Garrison is an American author and scholar of William Shakespeare and Renaissance literature. In 2021, he was named a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his scholarship on English literature.
Devoney Kay Looser is an American literary critic and Jane Austen scholar. She is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, where she focuses on women's writing and the history of the novel.
TV Gospel Time was an American Sunday morning television gospel music show that ran for three years on NBC network from 1962 to 1965. The show was based out of Chicago, with running time of 30 minutes. TV Gospel Time was the first television show designed to appeal to black audiences, according to Billboard Music Week October 20, 1962, when it launched in six television markets, New York, Washington DC, Augusta, Charleston, Columbus, and Baltimore. The number of cities carrying the show had grown to 20 by January 1963, and 50 markets by 1965. TV Gospel Time was the first television broadcast dedicated to gospel music airing one year before a similar gospel theme broadcast Jubilee Showcase started to air also from Chicago, on ABC network in 1963. TV Gospel Time was also the first TV broadcast of music performed exclusively by black musicians.
