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 a 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.
Dorsey 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 played with Rainey’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels and eventually married Nettie, her dresser. Dorsey 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.
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 grief following the death of his first wife and child in childbirth in 1930. Tommy had traveled to Chicago only to receive the telegram that his wife had died. When he rushed home, he was told the baby had died before he arrived. Overcome with grief, he penned,
Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light:
Refrain
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
When my way grows drear,
Precious Lord, linger near,
When my life is almost gone,
Hear my cry, hear my call,
Hold my hand lest I fall:
Refrain
When the darkness appears
And the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:
This song 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”. (Source: Southern Music in the 20th Century)[
