Thomas A. Dorsey
Musician · 1899–1993 · Villa Rica, Georgia
Best known for
Songwriter
Thomas A. Dorsey was the Chicago pianist and choir director widely credited as the father of Black gospel music — the man who fused the blues-piano vocabulary of his Chicago South Side nightclub years (as Georgia Tom) with the sacred lyric tradition of his Baptist-preacher father’s church. His “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” (1932), written after his wife and infant son died in childbirth, became a hymn of the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite song.
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- Born Thomas Andrew Dorsey on July 1, 1899, in Villa Rica, Georgia; raised in Atlanta from around age eight, where his father was a Baptist preacher and his mother a piano teacher.
- Moved to Chicago in 1916 and studied at the Chicago College of Composition and Arranging.
- Played the South Side nightclub circuit under the names Georgia Tom, Texas Tommy, and Barrelhouse Tom.
- Converted in 1928 after a severe 1926 illness; joined Pilgrim Baptist Church and served as its choir director from 1932 for forty years.
- Wrote “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” in 1932 in the aftermath of his wife Nettie’s and their infant son’s deaths in childbirth.
- The song became one of the most-recorded American gospel hymns; Mahalia Jackson made it a Civil Rights movement signature.
- Founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses and served as its first president.
- Wrote roughly 3,000 songs across his career, about a third of them gospel; other widely sung titles include “Peace in the Valley” and “If You See My Savior.”
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
- Died January 23, 1993, in Chicago, at age 93.
