Born to Arkansan cotton farmers in 1915, Sister Rosetta Tharpe would find her considerable voice in a traveling gospel choir, relocate to Chicago, and eventually find herself being the forerunner of Rock 'n' Roll with her powerful sound creating a now forgotten fame and inspiring the likes of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Godmother of Rock & Roll features great performance footage, bearing witness to the thunderous performer, but is surprisingly short on background detail, running under an hour, and it would have been nice to learn a little more about this unfortunately relatively unknown artist.
