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About Thomas A. Dorsey at Precious Lord Take My Hand!
THOMAS A. DORSEY
(1899 - 1993)
(born July 1, 1899, Villa Rica,
Georgia; died January 23, 1993, Chicago, Illinois)
Thomas A. Dorsey learned his
religion from his Baptist minister father and piano from his music teacher
mother in Villa Rica, Georgia, where he was born July 1, 1899. He came
under the influence of local blues pianist when they moved to Atlanta in 1910.
He and his family relocated to
Chicago during World War I where they joined the Pilgrim Baptist Church, and he
studied at the Chicago College of Composition and Arranging and became an agent
for Paramount Records.
He began his musical career known
as Georgia Tom, playing barrelhouse piano in one of Al Capone’s Chicago
speakeasies and leading Ma Rainey’s Jazz band. He hooked up with slide
guitarist Hudson Tampa Red Whittaker with whom he recorded the best selling
blues hit, "Tight Like That," in 1928 and wrote more than 460 Rhythm and Blues
and Jazz songs.
He was soon whipped into shape to
do the Lords will. Discouraged by his own efforts to publish and sell his
songs through the old method of peddled song sheets and dissatisfied with the
treatment given composers of race music by the music publishing industry, Dorsey
became the first independent publisher of black Gospel music with the
establishment of the Dorsey House of music in Chicago in 1932.
He also founded and became the
President of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. He
wrote his classic and most famous song, "Precious Lord" in the grief following
the death of his first wife in childbirth in 1932.
It since has been recorded by such
diverse artists as Mahalia Jackson, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Roy Rogers and Dale
Evans, and Elvis Presley, and was the favorite Gospel song of both Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., who asked that it be sung at the rally he led the night before
his assassination, and of President Lyndon B. Johnson who requested that it be
sung at his funeral.
Almost equally well known is his
"Peace in the Valley," which he wrote for Mahalia Jackson in 1937. In
October of 1979, he was the first black elected to the Nashville Songwriters
International Hall of Fame.
In September 1981, his native
Georgia honored him with election to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame; in March
1982, he was the first black elected to the Gospel Music Association's Living
Hall of Fame; in August 1982, the Thomas A. Dorsey Archives were opened at Fisk
University where his collection joined those of W. C. Handy, George Gershwin,
and the Jubilee Singers.
Summing up his life, he says all
his work has been from God, for God, and for his people.
© 1997 - 2000 Southern
Music Network
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