Thomas A. Dorsey

Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899 – January 23, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and Christian evangelist influential in the development of early blues and 20th-century gospel music. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them gospel, including "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley". Recordings of these sold millions of copies in both gospel and secular markets in the 20th century.

Born into a preacher’s family in rural Georgia, Thomas Dorsey began playing the family organ at age six. At eight he started writing his own music, and by 13, was playing piano in Atlanta, accompanying some of the famous jazz artists of the day. In 1916, Dorsey moved to Chicago to study at the Chicago School of Composition and Arranging. Although his beginnings were in the jazz and blues tradition, he was also influenced by music he heard through his religious affiliations. His first attempts to combine the two styles, which he called the “gospel song,” were met with resistance, however, because of their heavy blues influence. “Several times I have been thrown out of some of the best churches,” Dorsey remembered in a 1980 interview. “But they just didn’t understand.”

 Dorsey was the son of Thomas Madison Dorsey, who preached at Mt. Prospect Baptist Church, and Etta Dorsey, a church organist who taught young Thomas the keyboard. Growing up in Villa Rica in the early 1900s, the youth was introduced by relatives to shaped note singing and to a musical style that would later be known as the Blues.

 After a spiritual awakening, Dorsey began concentrating on writing and arranging religious music. Aside from the lyrics, he saw no real distinction between blues and church music, and viewed songs as a supplement to spoken word preaching. Dorsey served as the music director at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church for 50 years, introducing musical improvisation and encouraging personal elements of participation such as clapping, stomping, and shouting in churches when these were widely condemned as unrefined and common. In 1932, he co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, an organization dedicated to training musicians and singers from all over the U.S. that remains active. The first generation of gospel singers in the 20th century worked or trained with Dorsey: Sallie Martin, Mahalia Jackson, Roberta Martin, and James Cleveland, among others.

  Aretha Franklin - Precious Lord Precious Lord "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" (2015) Ledisi - Selma Movie Soundtrack Take My Hand, Precious Lord Kenneth Whalum III - Precious Lord Take My Hand Precious Lord by Thomas Dorsey, arranged by Arnold Sevier Precious Lord | Aeolians of Oakwood University Luther Barnes & The Sunset Jubilaires - Precious Lord, Take My Hand