“Blessed Jesus, Hold My Hand” — also known simply as “Jesus, Hold My Hand” — was written by Albert E. Brumley and copyrighted in 1933, in a songbook published by the Hartford Music Company. Brumley, often called the dean of gospel songwriters, also wrote “I’ll Fly Away,” “Turn Your Radio On,” and “Rank Strangers to Me,” and his songs run deep through country and bluegrass gospel.
The lyric is a plain prayer for guidance and strength — a believer asking for a steadying hand through trouble toward the promised land. Brumley reportedly drew it from a period of hardship and uncertainty in his own young life, and that directness is part of why it traveled so widely.
By mid-century the song was a fixture of country gospel, and it settled naturally into bluegrass, where its quartet harmony fits the form. The Crowe Brothers recorded it on their 1988 gospel album Jesus Is Coming, one of many bluegrass acts to keep a Brumley standard in their sacred sets.
