Thomas Andrew Dorsey

Thomas Andrew Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, Georgia, on July 1, 1899, the son of an itinerant Baptist preacher and a church organist. After moving to Chicago in 1919, he built a successful career in blues and jazz under names including Georgia Tom, performing and recording with artists such as Tampa Red and Ma Rainey. At the same time, sacred music increasingly drew his attention, and by the early 1930s he was helping develop a new urban gospel style that joined Black church traditions with musical language shaped by blues and jazz.

Dorsey organized gospel choirs at Ebenezer Baptist Church and Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago and helped establish the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. His publishing, teaching, choir direction, and songwriting made Chicago a major center of modern African American gospel music.

In August 1932, while Dorsey was away at a revival in St. Louis, his wife Nettie Harper died in childbirth; their newborn son also died. In his own later account, the bereavement led directly to “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” He wrote the text and reshaped the older MAITLAND melody for it. Dorsey continued composing sacred music for decades and died in Chicago on January 23, 1993.