The Popular Music Project at The Norman Lear Center presented "'She Made That Guitar Talk': Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe," a talk by Gayle F. Wald, Friday March 2nd, at USC Annenberg School for Communication. Wald is a George Washington University professor and author of the new biography Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock and Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Beacon, 2007).

Praise for Shout, Sister, Shout:

Bonnie Raitt says, "Rosetta was one of the most beloved and influential artists ever in gospel music and she blazed a trail for the rest of us women guitarists with her indomitable spirit and accomplished, engaging style."

Greil Marcus says, "Rosetta Tharpe was larger than life -- but sometimes, as Gayle Wald tells the story, she was larger than herself. Wald's account of Tharpe's 1951 marriage in Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. -- she signed a contract for the wedding, then went looking for the husband -- is a classic American tall tale, except that it happened, and, in these pages, you are there."

This event was presented by The Norman Lear Center's Pop Music Project and The Program in African-American Studies.