Sister Rosetta Tharpe is considered a blues legend that had a special guitar technique for which many consider her as “The Godmother of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” So far Tharpe had a documentary from 2011 devoted to her career and was the inspiration for the 2016 off-Broadway play Marie And Rosetta. Now, as Deadline reports, Amazon MGM Studios is currently developing a biopic about the musician, titled Rosetta, with current big star Lizzo set to play Tharpe.
Lizzo is also billed as a producer on Rosetta, along with Kevin Beisler, Significant Productions’ Nina Yang Bongiovi, and Forest Whitaker. The screenplay will come from Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant, Queen Of The South) and Kwynn Perry (Tigerbelles, The Burned Photo). The film will document “a pivotal period” in Tharpe’s life, upending the norms of both gospel and R&B with her then-unconventional electric guitar distortion, while also navigating the strife that came with being a queer Black woman in mid-century America.
At the same time, after a series of legal hassles in 2023, Lizzo is set for her musical comeback, releasing two new singles – “Love In Real Life” and “Still Bad.”
Sister Rosetta Tharpe 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. She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians, including Tina Turner, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Tharpe was a pioneer in her guitar technique; she was among the first popular recording artists to use heavy distortion on her electric guitar, opening the way to the rise of electric blues. Her guitar-playing technique had a profound influence on the development of British blues in the 1960s with her European tour with Muddy Waters in 1964 often cited by British guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards.
