Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, Georgia. His father was a minister and his mother a piano teacher. Dorsey learned to play blues piano as a young man. After studying music formally in Chicago, he became an agent for Paramount Records. In 1924, he put together a band for Ma Rainey called the Wild Cats Jazz Band. He started out playing at rent parties under the names Barrelhouse Tom and Texas Tommy, but was also best known as Georgia Tom. Dorsey also began recording gospel music along with blues in the mid-1920s. For a short time around 1926, he accompanied the Pace Jubilee Singers. As Georgia Tom, he teamed up with Tampa Red, with whom he recorded the raunchy 1928 ragtime hit record "It's Tight Like That", a sensation, eventually selling seven million copies.
Gospel career
As formulated by Dorsey, gospel music combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. His conception also deviates from what had been, to that time, standard hymnal practice by referring explicitly to the self and its relation to faith and God, rather than the individual subsumed into the group by belief. In all, Dorsey is credited with more than 400 blues and jazz songs. These recordings led to his performance at the National Baptist Convention in 1930, and he became the bandleader of two churches in the early 1930s. In 1931 Dorsey's wife, Nettie Harper, died giving birth to their first child, Thomas Andrew Jr., who died a day later. Dorsey wrote his most famous composition, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand", whilst he was grieving their deaths. This horrific event, coupled with several nervous breakdowns where he contemplated suicide, led to Dorsey committing himself entirely to gospel music and Christian work. Unhappy with the treatment he received at the hands of established publishers, Dorsey founded the first black gospel music publishing company, Dorsey House of Music. He also founded a gospel choir and was a founder and the first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. Dorsey influenced not only African-American music but also music by white artists. "Precious Lord" was recorded by Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King, Clara Ward, Dorothy Norwood, Jim Reeves, Roy Rogers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Johnny Cash, among many others. It was a favorite gospel song of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was sung at the rally held at Mason Temple the night before his assassination. By his request, it was sung at his funeral by Mahalia Jackson. It was a favorite of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also requested that it be sung at his funeral. Dorsey was also a great influence on other Chicago-based gospel artists, such as Albertina Walker and the Caravans and Little Joey McClork. Elvis Presley's rendition of "Peace in the Valley" as delivered on his third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, on January 6, 1957, was seen by approximately 54 million television viewers. That night, Presley launched a live emergency appeal to lessen the plight of some 250,000 Hungarian refugees fleeing the recent invasion of their country by the Soviet Union, and dedicated the song to them. Over the next 11 months some US$6 million was donated to the International Red Cross in Geneva, which distributed food rations, clothing, and other essentials to the refugees. In 1992, Dorsey was honored with the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences National Trustees Award.
Personal life
Dorsey was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Dorsey's niece is Lena McLin, Gospel singer and Chicago-area music teacher. In 1925, Dorsey married his first wife, Nettie Harper. Harper, who had been Ma Rainey's wardrobe mistress, died during childbirth in 1932. Two days later the child, a son, also died. In 1941, Dorsey married Kathryn Mosley. He was survived by two children: Doris and Mickey. In later life, Dorsey suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Death
Dorsey died on January 23, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois at age 93. He was interred there in the Oak Woods Cemetery.
Legacy
The 1982 documentary, 'Say Amen, Somebody', surveys the history of modern gospel music and focuses heavily on the role that Thomas A. Dorsey played in its development. The title, "Say Amen, Somebody", is taken from a quote Dorsey makes in the film. That same year, Dorsey was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Dorsey was the first African American elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and also the first in the Gospel Music Association's Living Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett RecordsWalk of Fame, in Richmond, Indiana. His papers are preserved at Fisk University. Dorsey's works have proliferated beyond performance, into the hymnals of virtually all American churches and of English-speaking churches worldwide. In 2018, Dorsey was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame under his blues stage name, "Georgia Tom Dorsey".
