Jack & Jill Politics

The Father of Gospel Music – Thomas Dorsey

Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899, Villa Rica, Georgia – January 23, 1993, Chicago). He is known as “the father of gospel music” and was at one time so closely associated with the field that songs written in the new style were sometimes known as “dorseys.”[1] Earlier in his life he was a leading blues pianist known as Georgia Tom.

As formulated by Dorsey, gospel music combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. His conception also deviates from what had been, to that time, standard hymnal practice by referring explicitly to the self, and the self’s relation to faith and God, rather than the individual subsumed into the group via belief.

Dorsey was the music director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago from 1932 until the late 1970s. His best known composition, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”, was performed by Mahalia Jackson and was a favorite of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, and “Peace in the Valley”, which was a hit for Red Foley in 1951 and has been performed by dozens of other artists, including Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.

In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (1973), by adding it to the United States National Recording Registry.

Part of the This Far By Faith Documentary on PBS.

Precious Lord: The Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey

Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, Vol. 1, 1928-1930

The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church, by Michael W. Harris

Great Gospel Songs Of Thomas A. Dorsey (Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook)