(b Villa Rica, GA, 1 July 1899; d Chicago, 23 Jan 1993). American blues singer, gospel songwriter, pianist and publisher. The son of an African-American revivalist preacher, he moved in 1910 to Atlanta, where he came under the influence of local blues pianists. He left for Chicago during World War I and studied at the Chicago College of Composition and Arranging, also becoming an agent for Paramount records. Dorsey’s compositions at the time included Riverside Blues (recorded by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, 1923, Para.). His skill as a pianist, composer and arranger gained him a job with Les Hite’s Whispering Serenaders in 1923, and soon afterwards he formed his own Wildcats Jazz Band, with which Ma Rainey performed. As ‘Georgia Tom’ he made several recordings with her, usually including the slide guitarist Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker). In the late 1920s Dorsey formed a duo with Tampa Red; their blues recording Tight like that (1928, Voc.) became a great hit and prompted further collaboration in recordings of ‘hokum’ blues, combining urban sophistication, rural humour and often ribaldry, as in Terrible Operation Blues (1930, Champion). Dorsey’s first gospel song, Someday, Somewhere, was published in the collection Gospel Pearls (1921), and in the early 1930s he turned exclusively to gospel music. In 1931 he organized the first gospel choir at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Chicago; the following year, with Sallie Martin, he founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, and also opened the Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Songs Music Publishing Company, the first publishing house for the promotion of black American gospel music.
Dorsey was the most influential figure in the gospel song movement. His earliest gospel songs, including Stand by me, If I don’t get there and We will meet him in the sweet by and by, were strongly influenced by C.A. Tindley. They are based on church hymns and spirituals and lack the swing and open structure of his later songs. In the early 1930s he made a small number of gospel recordings, including How about you (1932, Voc.) and If you see my Saviour (1932, Voc.), and the widely recorded song If I could hear my mother pray (1934, Voc.). His light voice, suited to the earlier blues recordings, lacked conviction and excitement for gospel music and he made no further recordings, concentrating instead on writing songs that others would interpret. Of these his most successful was Precious Lord, take my hand (1932), written after his first wife’s death. As he became known for his compositions, Dorsey toured with Mahalia Jackson and Roberta Martin, selling sheet music of his songs. Among the best known are There’ll be peace, I will put my trust in the Lord and The Lord has laid His hands on me. As late as 1983 he figured prominently in the acclaimed documentary film Say Amen, Somebody!, which included his own performance of Precious Lord as well as a clip of the song being sung by Mahalia Jackson.
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C. Cooper: ‘The Real Thomas Dorsey’, Village Voice (5 Oct 1982)
J.A. Standifer: ‘Reminiscences of Black Musicians’, Jazzforschung/Jazz Research, xvii (1985), 205–22
J.A. Wright: ‘Music as Cultural Expression in Black Church Theology and Worship’, Journal of Black Sacred Music, iii (1989), 1–5
M.W. Harris: The Rise of Gospel Blues: the Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church (New York, 1992)
PAUL OLIVER/R