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Gospel Music

Who was the first black to take gospel music into a secular setting?

“Sister” Rosetta Tharpe (Rosetta Nubin; 1915–1973) was the first black to take gospel music into a secular setting, when she sang on a Cab Calloway show from the Cotton Club in 1938. When she signed with Decca, she became the first gospel singer to record for a major company. Born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and raised in the Church of God in Christ—a Pentecostal denomination—Tharpe began touring as a professional when she was six. She took the lead in bringing gospel music to the mainstream. Tharpe was the first major gospel singer to tour extensively in Europe, and in 1943 she was the first to sing gospel at the Apollo Theater in New York City.



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