The People Who Paved the Way

Trailblazers

Pioneers, barrier-breakers, and history-makers who changed what's possible.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the godmother of rock and roll — a gospel singer and guitarist whose performances in the 1930s and 40s laid the groundwork for Chuck Berry, Elvis, and Little Richard. She was shredding on an electric guitar before the instrument was common in popular music. Her 1944 hit Strange Things Happening Every […]

Stevie Wonder

Music

Stevie Wonder signed with Motown at 11 and created some of the most innovative, joyful, and socially conscious music of the twentieth century. Blind from shortly after birth, he mastered piano, harmonica, and drums before adolescence. The albums between 1972-1976 — Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life — […]

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Trailblazers

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Stevie Wonder

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