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Saluting the mother of rock ’n’ roll

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Saluting the mother of rock ’n’ roll

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Sister Rosetta Tharpe played the electric guitar in the 1930s and ’40s and laid the foundations of rock ’n roll music

By Sucheta Dasgupta

It is the time to remember music’s pioneers with rock ’n roll icon Chuck Berry passing away this weekend. The musician who helped shape the genre with his rollicking chartbusting hits was 90 years old. It is also Women’s History Month in the English-speaking world, so this story has that bit of special significance. Yes, it was a woman who invented rock ’n roll. And her birthday is today.

Her name is Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She sang in the 1930s and ’40s. She may have been forgotten by the history books until recently but she was the first woman to play the electric guitar, the first singer to sing gospel blues, and the first gospel music artiste to have been recorded in a studio. She was the musical influence of later blues and rock ’n roll artistes such as Elvis “The King” Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Johnny Cash.

Born to Arkansas cotton-pickers in 1915, Rosetta Nubin first began singing and playing guitar at the age of four. She was a child prodigy and soon she was playing in a travelling evangelical troupe alongside her mother. Rosetta moved to Chicago with her mother and gained significant fame. After a brief marriage to a preacher named Thomas Thorpe, she adopted her stage name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Tharpe’s singing style reminds one of Janis Joplin and Tina Turner, and the range of her vocal chords is astonishing. Her guitar solos are among the best of the best and she easily outplayed the male artistes of her time in guitar battles. Sadly, women guitarists of her calibre are a rarity even today.

As the genre of blues began to take shape, it was stereotypes that did her in. Her guitar playing and innovative singing style had initially alienated her from more culturally conservative audiences while endearing her to more secular ones, but her popularity started waning in 1949. Tharpe suffered a stroke in 1970, after which one of her legs was amputated following complications arising from diabetes. In 1973, she died after suffering another stroke. She was 58 years old.

“All this new stuff they call rock ’n roll, why, I’ve been playing that for years now… Ninety percent of rock ’n roll artistes came out of the church, their foundation is the church,” Rosetta had famously said in 1957. Indeed, her contribution has been acknowledged by her musical successors. Richard referred to the stomping, shouting performer as his favourite singer when he was a child. When Cash gave his induction speech at the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame, he, too, referred to Tharpe as his primary influence.

In 2007, Tharpe was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame. In 2011 BBC Four aired a one-hour documentary, aptly titled Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll, directed by Mick Csaky. Sample a YouTube video of the singer during her Europe tour (in the company of bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Otis Spann) here.

Her epitaph reads: “She would sing until you cried and then she would sing until you danced for joy. She helped to keep the church alive and the saints rejoicing.”

Rest in peace, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Image courtesy: PBS. org[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Book reviews

Walking On The Razor’s Edge: The path of the seeker

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The Power of Karma Yoga by Gopi Chandra Das (Jaico Books) is an attempt to unravel the mystique of the Bhagavad Gita in the contemporary context. Is Lord Krishna’s counsel to Arjuna still relevant in today’s time and social space ? How can the timeless teachings of Lord Krishna be adopted by people struggling to cope with the stresses and challenges of modern life? Is there a key teaching which can be easily adopted by stress-torn people? These and many more questions are answered by the author in his easy-to-read style.

The basic premise is that the stress is a function of identity; identity with ego or with role-playing. We all play roles in life: in the family, the office and in the social sphere. These roles demand close identification and exact their cost by way of fear, frustration and failures.

The way out is to ease one’s sense of identity with one’s temporal roles. At the metaphysical level, it means keeping oneself in a detached state from one’s ego. This requires sustained spiritual discipline, but automatically yields to mental distancing with mundane roles as well. No wonder the Katha Upanishad compares the spiritual path to a razor’s edge.

Lord Krishna sought to instil this detached perspective in Arjuna by underlining the perishable nature of the body and the transitory nature of the world. However, the key is to strike a balance between total detachment and total attachment. The golden mean is attained by letting go with discrimination. If we detach too much, it will become difficult to perform our duties; if we cling too much, the material will become a millstone. The idea is to be in the world and yet not be of it. As the Persian saint Abu Said said, “To buy and sell and yet never forget God.”

Detachment, however, doesn’t mean irresponsibility. On the contrary, it means working with utter responsibility; with a sense that the job at hand is a moment to glorify the divine. It is not only work for work’s sake; work is taken up as a tool for self-realization. This is more deeply grasped if we acknowledge that the Gita is not only a handbook of divine knowledge or spiritualised action but essentially a guidepost for the man treading the path of enlightenment.

Sri Aurobindo says: “The Gita is not a weapon for dia­lectical warfare; it is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience, and the view it gives us embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. It maps out, but it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision.”

Or as Paramahansa Yoganananda puts it: Gita sheds light on any point of life in which the devotee finds himself in.

Delving yet further, Gopinath explains in the book that letting go is made easy by the practice of apagriha, or being unattached to desires with conscious control on attachment-driven strivings. In the process, one’s motive gets transformed from want-driven to purpose-driven. The aim, at the highest level, being self-realization: the acme of spiritual strivings. For all material strivings ought to be in essence spititual strivings.

When we shift from want-driven to purpose-driven action, the need for personal validation ceases. In our quest for a spiritual-centric action mode, yagna plays an important role. The concept of yagna is transposed from a religious fire-rite to diurnal mundane acts in which personal motives are quenched. As the borderline between the spiritual and the material gets increasingly dissolved, the quest for enlightenment becomes the summum bonum of life.

The direction and blessings of a sadguru is also needed in this eternal quest for soul freedom. In the ultimate sense, the material life and its duties become a stepping stone for a higher life which man embraces to achieve the state of kaivalya. The book lucidly interweaves real-life stories with philosophical concepts, which make for interesting reading.

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Entertainment

Justin Bieber shares unseen pictures from Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding sangeet

Justin Bieber’s energetic performance on Friday was the highlight of the sangeet ceremony, which took place at the Nita Ambani Convention Centre in Bandra, Mumbai.

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Justin Bieber shares unseen pictures from Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding sangeet

Global popstar Justin Bieber brought the energy at Anant Ambani and Radhika Ambani’s pre-wedding sangeet on July 5 in Mumbai. The soon to be married couple (wedding in July 12th) was spotted enjoying themselves as Bieber belted out his hits. While glimpses from the night went viral earlier, Bieber has now shared unseen photos and videos from his memorable trip to India.

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The heartwarming pictures show Justin Bieber bonding with Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant and their family. In one picture Justin stands with Anant and Radhika, all three dressed festively for the sangeet ceremony. Another photo captures a casual moment where Justin Bieber is seen chatting with Akash Ambani on a couch while Anant and Radhika are posing with him.

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The group also posed for a larger picture that included Shloka Mehta and Anand Piramal. The final photos show Justin Bieber and Anant Ambani engaged in a friendly conversation, solidifying the warm atmosphere of the visit. Justin’s trip to India started on Friday morning with his arrival in Mumbai.

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That night Bieber transformed the Jio Convention Centre into a party zone with his hit songs and celebrities like Salman Khan and Alia Bhatt grooved along with him. Videos circulating on social media show Justin Bieber dancing with Orry and receiving a hug from Alaviaa Jaffrey( daughter of Javed Jaffrey). According to reports Justin Bieber has been paid $10million for this special performance.

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Bieber’s energetic performance on Friday was the highlight of the sangeet ceremony, which took place at the Nita Ambani Convention Centre in Bandra, Mumbai. The singer made the guests groove on his songs Baby, Love Yourself, Peaches, Where Are You Now and Sorry. Bieber’s fresh off his triumphant return to the stage once again set the internet ablaze with his electrifying performance at Anant and Radhika’s sangeet ceremony.

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Entertainment

Yashraj Mukhate collaborates with Amit Trivedi for Mann Dhaaga song

In a post circulating on Instagram Yashraj Mukhate talks about his experience of listening to Amit Trivedi’s music and recalls how he had always dreamt of collaborating with Amit Trivedi. He said his dream came true 2 years later in 2024 where he collaborated with Trivedi on the song Mann Dhaaga.

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Amit Trivedi is known for his soulful compositions which weave profound lyrics, captivating music lovers. His songs spark a deep desire in aspiring artists to collaborate with him. Music producer and You Tuber Yashraj Mukhate had immense admiration for Trivedi’s artistry. In a post circulating on Instagram Yashraj Mukhate talks about his experience of listening to Amit Trivedi’s music and recalls how he had always dreamt of collaborating with Amit Trivedi.

He said his dream came true 2 years later in 2024 where he collaborated with Trivedi on the song Mann Dhaaga. He wrote that he had been listening to the entire Dev D Album carefully in 2012. And he kept listening to it on loop for 3 weeks. He continued to listen to Amit Trivedi compositions in Aisha, Kai Po Che, Udaan, Lootera, Queen, Fitoor continuously. He said he could not stop himself and became a big fan of the music director. He said he started dreaming of meeting his idol one day and collaborating with him.

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He recalled that he had to download songs from songs.pk and listen to them. He said the songs kept running inside his mind all through the day. He added that he even remembered Amit Trivedi’s ad jingles word for Fanta, Frooti, Dish TV and all of them.

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Mukhate said he always dreamed of meeting Amit Trivedi and wanted to thank him for giving this experience. The post has gone viral on social media with 96,445 likes till now. Large number of social media user commented on the social media post where one user Parth said the Yashraj Mukhate was truly an inspiration. One user said his dedication had brought him to level. One user said a man should make all his dreams come true by going through one hustle at a time.

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