On this episode of Our American Stories, Robert Marovich, a writer for the Journal of Gospel Music, shares the story of Thomas A. Dorsey and how the tragic loss of his wife and newborn child in 1932 led him to write the gospel classic "Precious Lord, Take My Hand"—a hymn that would later become a favorite of Martin Luther King Jr.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next the
story of Thomas Dorsey, a musician and a songwriter, a
gospel writer, not to be confused with Tommy Dorsey, the
bandleader of the nineteen thirties. This is the story of
Thomas Dorsey, who helped change and shape gospel music in
(00:32):
American Black churches. And he's also the composer of Take
My Hand, Precious Lord. Here to tell the story is
Robert Meurovich, and he's the founder and editor of the
Journal of Gospel Music, Take It Away.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Robert Thomas Andrew Dorsey was born in Villarica, Georgia, in
eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Villa Rica was a very interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Town in that, despite the segregation of the era in
the South, it was a town run by African Americans.
So he grew up in an African American community that
was sort of self governing. His father was a pastor,
a minister. In those days. Often churches didn't have their
(01:18):
own minister, so he would go around to the different
churches at different Sundays and be their minister, be their
pastor for the day so that they could get their
worship service.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
His mother was very religious.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
She played the organ In fact, even though Thomas Dorsey
emulated his father very much, he often said his mother
was his greatest source of spirituality, but he did emulate
his father. They bought him a little cane and a hat,
and he would practice being a preacher. He would go
and have his own little church service by himself. He'd
hang up his cane and preach to probably the animals.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
But he was very talented in music.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
He had some music lessons on the piano, but he
was essentially self taught, as many gospel artists in his
day were. But he was not playing religious music at
the time. He was much more interested in vaudeville blues jazz,
the popular music of the day, particularly listening to the
blues singers like Bessie Smith and my Raini, and so
(02:17):
he developed his own piano style where he would go
around to various homes that would have what they call
house rent parties. He would play these events, and eventually
he migrated to Chicago, and he became popular in Chicago
for his They called him the Whispering Pianist because he
could play so quietly at these house rent parties that
(02:38):
the neighbors wouldn't get upset and call the police on them.
But he also got involved in the music business.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
He worked for Ma Rainey.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He was in charge of for Georgia Wildcatch jazz band,
so he worked with her on the road. He helped
Vocalian records blues artists to make records by sort of
teaching them how to be good studio artists so that
whatever they did on the stage would translate well on
a record. He wrote songs, he wrote blues, He did
(03:06):
all of those things. And in nineteen twenty one, as
he's living in Chicago, he reluctantly, by the way, goes
with his uncle to the National Baptist Convention and he
hears Reverend Nick sing a brand new kind of song
that comes out of a new book out of the
Baptist Convention called Gospel Pearls. The song is called I
Do Don't You? And Reverend Nix is singing this song,
(03:30):
and he sees how the blues and this new sacred
music kind of connects. He sees how Nix uses vocal
ornamentation and pauses and draws the people in and he's like,
this is exactly the Atlanta nightclubs.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
That I used to hang out look at.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And so he decides I want to write sacred music.
So he writes a song if I don't get there
in nineteen twenty one, nineteen twenty two, it's published in
the next issue of Gospel Pearls, and then he goes
about his big That's when he starts working with Ma Rainey.
That's when he teams up with Tampa Red and they
start writing and recording songs called hokum. And these were
(04:08):
kind of like double entendre, funny, kind of bluesy jazzy
songs that were very innuendo in nature. But he was
always writing these songs, these but he didn't necessarily call
him gospel songs all the time. But he was writing
these sacred songs, sacred hymns. But they had this lift,
the same lift that he was putting in his blues.
He was putting in these songs, but getting nowhere with
(04:30):
the churches because at that time in Chicago, as in
most Northern churches, African American churches at that time, this
kind of lively, joyful, blues jazz based music wasn't accepted
in the church. They thought this was not necessarily the
kind of worship music that was becoming of a Christian
that sounded like the music of the club. So Dorsey
(04:53):
felt he was being thrown out of more churches that
he could imagine.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
With his songs, they were sacred songs, but they had
this little fast over.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
In nineteen thirty, he has written a song called it
if You See My Savior, written about a neighbor who
passed away.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I was getting nowhere with this song.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But at the nineteen thirty National Baptist Convention, once again
in Chicago, a woman out of Saint Louis by the
name of Willie may Ford Smith sings this song and
the convention goes crazy. They love this song. Where can
we get this song? Who wrote this song? We know
(05:28):
nothing about this. So somebody at the convention who knew
Dorsey goes and tries to find him, drags him back
to the convention and says, this is the man that
wrote if You See My Savior. And this very very
conservative National Baptist Convention, who kind of ignored him since
he wrote the first song in his book, first and
only song for their book Gospel Pearl, said, young man,
you can set up your booth here and sell your
(05:50):
songs as long as you want. And that was sort
of the moment where Thomas A. Dorsey realized that these
gospel songs he was writing finally had a chance of
being successful. After the nineteen thirty National Baptist Convention, Dorsey
continued to sell his songs. In the meantime, there was
(06:12):
a new pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Chicago's south Side,
Doctor Smith, came in from Birmingham, and Doctor Smith wanted
his church not only to have the very austere sort
of silk stocking musical department that he was given. I
mean as the pastors very classically oriented, very straight, that
(06:35):
they sing hymns and anthems and oratorios and Bach and
Beethoven and all that. But he wanted a little of
the feel of the Southland in his church too, because
he was a new migrant, and he recognized that new
migrants were coming to Chicago who's memory of the South
and memory of worship services were probably more like Dorsey's
songs than the anthems they were singing at church. So
(06:57):
he wants something like this in his church, but he
doesn't know how to do it. So he contacts a
friend of his by the name of Theodore Fry, and
he asked, Fry, can you help me get some of
this old Southland music in my church?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And Fry is not one hundred percent sure how to
do it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So he had met Dorsey at that nineteen thirty convention,
they'd become friends, and he said, let's put something together
for them. So in late nineteen thirty one, Dorsey and
Fry create what's now considered the first modern gospel chorus.
It was debuted in early nineteen thirty two. And you
(07:33):
can imagine at a church with the very austere music ministry,
with high expectations for music, and here comes this chorus,
probably comprised mostly of migrants, with some old settlers as well,
and they're singing, you know, I'm on the battlefield for
my Lord, and they're clapping and they're swaying, and Dorsey's
playing the piano sounds like barrel house music, and that
(07:55):
could have gone over like a lead balloon. People could
have been embarrassed. They can you know, these old fools
aren't singing anything.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
But they loved it well.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
The next week, doctor Smith at Ebenezer was invited to
speak the sermon at doctor Junius Austin's anniversary of being
pastor Pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Baptist Church in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Normally, doctor Smith would have taken his senior choir with
him for that event. Instead, he takes the Gospel chorus
and the Gospel chorus whiles the Pilgrim Baptist Church congregation,
same as they did with the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And
Doctor Austin sitting there looking at this. Somehow he found
out that Dorsey was a member of Pilgrim, and so
he approaches Dorsty at some point and says, I want
(08:36):
you to set up one of those things that you
have at Ebenezer here And he said, what do you mean,
He said, one of those those choruses. He said, yeah,
give me a gospel chorus at Pilgrim. Well, Edward Botner,
was the musical director at Pilgrim at the time, hated
this idea, said, well, you can have Dorsey run this
gospel chorus if he's not paid. So Dorsey did it anyway,
(08:59):
he did it, took the job at Pilgrim, and all
of a sudden you start to see every week in
the Chicago Defender other churches in Chicago they're going to
have a gospel course. The word is spreading that Dorsey
and Fry have something going on that's really appealing. And
so in nineteen thirty two, you have this explosion of
(09:19):
gospel courses around Chicago.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And you've been listening to Robert Morovich, founder and editor
of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling the story of
Thomas Dorsey and how he and others shaped the music
gospel music of Chicago and in the end of African
American churches across the country, Dorsey being the composer of
(09:46):
Take My Hand, Precious Lord, and many others.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
When we come back more of this remarkable story, Thomas
Dorsey's here on now American stories, and we continue with
our American stories and with Robert Murovich, the founder and
(10:13):
editor of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling the story
of Thomas Dorsey and the broader story of African American
gospel music and.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Its influences in and around Chicago in the nineteen thirties.
Take it away, Robert.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
In August of nineteen thirty two, Dorsey is asked to
come down to Saint Louis. So he's going to go
down there and listen to some gospel choir sing. Now
his wife is almost ready to give birth to their
first son, his wife Neddie Dorsey, and he's not sure
he wants to go because he's afraid, you know, she's
going to give birth any minute. He wants to be there,
(10:51):
but Neddie says, go ahead, I'm fine. He kind of
gets a bad feeling, but he said, I'll go.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I'll go.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
I get it. Where I was in Hey rely and
my wife was to become a mother. I went away
with the feeling that, uh, she'd make a lovely love
the mother. When I came back, I knew my people
were well. When I left home and they sent for
(11:18):
me to come to the door. I said, boy, I
brought me in the telegram. I took it and read
it almost fell out, says hurry home. Your wife just died.
I don't know how you would accept that, but I
couldn't accept it at all, and uh, a friend of
(11:39):
mine put me in the car took me home. I
got home, I jumped out and ran in to see
if it was really true. And one of the goods,
just hearted, crying, said, NITTI just died, and it just died,
and it just died and fell.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
In the floored.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
The baby was left alive, but the next two days
the baby died.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Now what should I do?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Then? And there? And then they try to tell me
the things that was soothing to me, but none of
it's never been soothing to me from that day to
this day.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So he's going on, I'm like this for a few days,
and Theodore Fry decides, you know, I better do something
about this. So he says, you know, Dorsey, let's go,
let's have something to eat. Let's just go out, get out,
get some fresh air, let's talk.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They'll do you some good.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So they go to this community center and have dinner,
and after dinner there's a piano there. It's a grand
piano there, and so Dorsey kind of wanders over to
the piano after dinner and starts playing Jesus keep Me
near the Cross, and he's thinking, this is my cross.
My wife is gone, my baby is gone. This is
my cross, just like Jesus. But he starts playing around
(12:52):
with the melody because he's a jazz blues train. He
kind of does little ornamentations and he comes across a
different melody, oh, different variation of the melody. He starts
putting words to it, Blessed Lord, take my hand, and
he's playing and He finally says, Fry, come over here,
listen to this song. And Fry comes over and he's
playing it, and Fry said, it sounds pretty good, but
(13:15):
why do you call him blessed Lord? And he said,
Lord is a blessing, that's what Dorsey says. Fry said,
why don't you say precious Lord. I said, okay, tries
precious Lord. It sounds pretty good, and.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
I'll call the Lord some one thing. And then one
or the other says said, no, that's not his name,
said precious Lord. I say that does sounded good. And
he's got several amens precious Lord, and ladies and gentlemen,
believe it or not. I started singing red Den in there,
(13:47):
proracious Lord, My.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Me, me.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And let miss I am tied.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You. He introduces this song to the congregation one Sunday morning,
right there after the funeral service.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
He's written the song, and.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He's thinking, this is his testimony, this is my testimony.
Take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. I
am weak, I am worn. But the congregation hears this
and they just tear that church up. They're up shouting,
they're up, their hands are raised. People are in the
aisles Dorsey's confused. He thinks this is a very personal
(14:48):
song of my personal testimony. I should be the one
feeling sorry. But he had sort of captured the grieving
of the migrants and all African Americans in Chicago at
that time. It was their testimony too, even among older
settler blacks who looked down at the new migrants, you know,
(15:10):
thinking they don't know how to act, they don't know
how to dress, they don't know how to do do do.
So this was a group of people who felt like
strangers in a strange land. And I mean, you can't
even turn sometimes to your own church for guidance because
they're whispering prayers and they're singing these lofty anthems, and
this is nothing like by Baptist church in the South.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Where do you turn? And it was take my hand
and the Lord was the last place to turn.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
And this was the way that this song connected. And
from then on, take my hand, Precious Lord became sort
of an anthem of grieving and sort of asking for
that last bit of help.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
My only sort of strand of.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Hope is in the Lords load.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
Take my hand, lead me on. I'm we.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Through the story.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
To take my hand precious low.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Lead.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Leo Tolstoi wrote, Art conveys to others feelings he has experienced,
and other people are affected by these feelings and live
them over in themselves. And that's the thing is Dorsey
was writing this song as sort of a Catharsist for himself.
He was getting out all his grief of the loss
of his wife and son and calling on the Lord
(17:04):
for help. He really was needing that hand to lift
him up and lead him on to the light, because
there was no light.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was darkness around him at that time.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Inadvertently or through the grace of God, he inspired others
to realize that was their message as well. A gospel
singer here in Chicago named Betty Lester said to me,
she said, even in the forty fifty sixties, she said,
listen for black people, sometimes gospel music was all we had,
but those songs kept us going. And I think that's
(17:34):
what to Tolstoy's point, Art from one person becomes another
person's testimony. And it has always seen to me in gospel,
the best songs are written out of times of terrible
turmoil in one's life. These are the songs that just
burst out of your soul. And I would say of
all of Dorsey's songs, certainly he had hundreds, but Precious
(17:57):
Lord has lived so long because it is that catharsis
that last opportunity to really just say help me. It's
like Chris Kristoffersen's help me Jesus. I don't know where
else to turn. And as long as there's trouble in
the world, there will be Precious Lord, take my hand.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Take my hand, Precious Lord.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Me And a terrific job on the production, editing and
storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and our own Reagan Habib,
and a special thanks to Robert Morovich, the founder and
editor of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling this story
(18:45):
not just of Thomas Dorsey, but the story of Thomas
Dorsey's most precious and most popular song, Take My Hand,
Precious Lord, and how it came to be out of
great grief and tragedy, and out of that brings this
remarkable song. And when it was played at church soon thereafter,
(19:05):
Torsey didn't expect anything. It was his own personal testimony,
but the church exploded because it was there grief he
was tapping into the story of take my Hand, Precious Lord,
and Thomas Dorsey's story here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Up next the
story of Thomas Dorsey, a musician and a songwriter, a
gospel writer, not to be confused with Tommy Dorsey, the
bandleader of the nineteen thirties. This is the story of
Thomas Dorsey, who helped change and shape gospel music in
(00:32):
American Black churches. And he's also the composer of Take
My Hand, Precious Lord. Here to tell the story is
Robert Meurovich, and he's the founder and editor of the
Journal of Gospel Music, Take It Away.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Robert Thomas Andrew Dorsey was born in Villarica, Georgia, in
eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Villa Rica was a very interesting.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Town in that, despite the segregation of the era in
the South, it was a town run by African Americans.
So he grew up in an African American community that
was sort of self governing. His father was a pastor,
a minister. In those days. Often churches didn't have their
(01:18):
own minister, so he would go around to the different
churches at different Sundays and be their minister, be their
pastor for the day so that they could get their
worship service.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
His mother was very religious.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
She played the organ In fact, even though Thomas Dorsey
emulated his father very much, he often said his mother
was his greatest source of spirituality, but he did emulate
his father. They bought him a little cane and a hat,
and he would practice being a preacher. He would go
and have his own little church service by himself. He'd
hang up his cane and preach to probably the animals.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
But he was very talented in music.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
He had some music lessons on the piano, but he
was essentially self taught, as many gospel artists in his
day were. But he was not playing religious music at
the time. He was much more interested in vaudeville blues jazz,
the popular music of the day, particularly listening to the
blues singers like Bessie Smith and my Raini, and so
(02:17):
he developed his own piano style where he would go
around to various homes that would have what they call
house rent parties. He would play these events, and eventually
he migrated to Chicago, and he became popular in Chicago
for his They called him the Whispering Pianist because he
could play so quietly at these house rent parties that
(02:38):
the neighbors wouldn't get upset and call the police on them.
But he also got involved in the music business.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
He worked for Ma Rainey.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He was in charge of for Georgia Wildcatch jazz band,
so he worked with her on the road. He helped
Vocalian records blues artists to make records by sort of
teaching them how to be good studio artists so that
whatever they did on the stage would translate well on
a record. He wrote songs, he wrote blues, He did
(03:06):
all of those things. And in nineteen twenty one, as
he's living in Chicago, he reluctantly, by the way, goes
with his uncle to the National Baptist Convention and he
hears Reverend Nick sing a brand new kind of song
that comes out of a new book out of the
Baptist Convention called Gospel Pearls. The song is called I
Do Don't You? And Reverend Nix is singing this song,
(03:30):
and he sees how the blues and this new sacred
music kind of connects. He sees how Nix uses vocal
ornamentation and pauses and draws the people in and he's like,
this is exactly the Atlanta nightclubs.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
That I used to hang out look at.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And so he decides I want to write sacred music.
So he writes a song if I don't get there
in nineteen twenty one, nineteen twenty two, it's published in
the next issue of Gospel Pearls, and then he goes
about his big That's when he starts working with Ma Rainey.
That's when he teams up with Tampa Red and they
start writing and recording songs called hokum. And these were
(04:08):
kind of like double entendre, funny, kind of bluesy jazzy
songs that were very innuendo in nature. But he was
always writing these songs, these but he didn't necessarily call
him gospel songs all the time. But he was writing
these sacred songs, sacred hymns. But they had this lift,
the same lift that he was putting in his blues.
He was putting in these songs, but getting nowhere with
(04:30):
the churches because at that time in Chicago, as in
most Northern churches, African American churches at that time, this
kind of lively, joyful, blues jazz based music wasn't accepted
in the church. They thought this was not necessarily the
kind of worship music that was becoming of a Christian
that sounded like the music of the club. So Dorsey
(04:53):
felt he was being thrown out of more churches that
he could imagine.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
With his songs, they were sacred songs, but they had
this little fast over.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
In nineteen thirty, he has written a song called it
if You See My Savior, written about a neighbor who
passed away.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I was getting nowhere with this song.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But at the nineteen thirty National Baptist Convention, once again
in Chicago, a woman out of Saint Louis by the
name of Willie may Ford Smith sings this song and
the convention goes crazy. They love this song. Where can
we get this song? Who wrote this song? We know
(05:28):
nothing about this. So somebody at the convention who knew
Dorsey goes and tries to find him, drags him back
to the convention and says, this is the man that
wrote if You See My Savior. And this very very
conservative National Baptist Convention, who kind of ignored him since
he wrote the first song in his book, first and
only song for their book Gospel Pearl, said, young man,
you can set up your booth here and sell your
(05:50):
songs as long as you want. And that was sort
of the moment where Thomas A. Dorsey realized that these
gospel songs he was writing finally had a chance of
being successful. After the nineteen thirty National Baptist Convention, Dorsey
continued to sell his songs. In the meantime, there was
(06:12):
a new pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Chicago's south Side,
Doctor Smith, came in from Birmingham, and Doctor Smith wanted
his church not only to have the very austere sort
of silk stocking musical department that he was given. I
mean as the pastors very classically oriented, very straight, that
(06:35):
they sing hymns and anthems and oratorios and Bach and
Beethoven and all that. But he wanted a little of
the feel of the Southland in his church too, because
he was a new migrant, and he recognized that new
migrants were coming to Chicago who's memory of the South
and memory of worship services were probably more like Dorsey's
songs than the anthems they were singing at church. So
(06:57):
he wants something like this in his church, but he
doesn't know how to do it. So he contacts a
friend of his by the name of Theodore Fry, and
he asked, Fry, can you help me get some of
this old Southland music in my church?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And Fry is not one hundred percent sure how to
do it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So he had met Dorsey at that nineteen thirty convention,
they'd become friends, and he said, let's put something together
for them. So in late nineteen thirty one, Dorsey and
Fry create what's now considered the first modern gospel chorus.
It was debuted in early nineteen thirty two. And you
(07:33):
can imagine at a church with the very austere music ministry,
with high expectations for music, and here comes this chorus,
probably comprised mostly of migrants, with some old settlers as well,
and they're singing, you know, I'm on the battlefield for
my Lord, and they're clapping and they're swaying, and Dorsey's
playing the piano sounds like barrel house music, and that
(07:55):
could have gone over like a lead balloon. People could
have been embarrassed. They can you know, these old fools
aren't singing anything.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
But they loved it well.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
The next week, doctor Smith at Ebenezer was invited to
speak the sermon at doctor Junius Austin's anniversary of being
pastor Pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Baptist Church in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Normally, doctor Smith would have taken his senior choir with
him for that event. Instead, he takes the Gospel chorus
and the Gospel chorus whiles the Pilgrim Baptist Church congregation,
same as they did with the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And
Doctor Austin sitting there looking at this. Somehow he found
out that Dorsey was a member of Pilgrim, and so
he approaches Dorsty at some point and says, I want
(08:36):
you to set up one of those things that you
have at Ebenezer here And he said, what do you mean,
He said, one of those those choruses. He said, yeah,
give me a gospel chorus at Pilgrim. Well, Edward Botner,
was the musical director at Pilgrim at the time, hated
this idea, said, well, you can have Dorsey run this
gospel chorus if he's not paid. So Dorsey did it anyway,
(08:59):
he did it, took the job at Pilgrim, and all
of a sudden you start to see every week in
the Chicago Defender other churches in Chicago they're going to
have a gospel course. The word is spreading that Dorsey
and Fry have something going on that's really appealing. And
so in nineteen thirty two, you have this explosion of
(09:19):
gospel courses around Chicago.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And you've been listening to Robert Morovich, founder and editor
of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling the story of
Thomas Dorsey and how he and others shaped the music
gospel music of Chicago and in the end of African
American churches across the country, Dorsey being the composer of
(09:46):
Take My Hand, Precious Lord, and many others.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
When we come back more of this remarkable story, Thomas
Dorsey's here on now American stories, and we continue with
our American stories and with Robert Murovich, the founder and
(10:13):
editor of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling the story
of Thomas Dorsey and the broader story of African American
gospel music and.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Its influences in and around Chicago in the nineteen thirties.
Take it away, Robert.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
In August of nineteen thirty two, Dorsey is asked to
come down to Saint Louis. So he's going to go
down there and listen to some gospel choir sing. Now
his wife is almost ready to give birth to their
first son, his wife Neddie Dorsey, and he's not sure
he wants to go because he's afraid, you know, she's
going to give birth any minute. He wants to be there,
(10:51):
but Neddie says, go ahead, I'm fine. He kind of
gets a bad feeling, but he said, I'll go.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I'll go.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
I get it. Where I was in Hey rely and
my wife was to become a mother. I went away
with the feeling that, uh, she'd make a lovely love
the mother. When I came back, I knew my people
were well. When I left home and they sent for
(11:18):
me to come to the door. I said, boy, I
brought me in the telegram. I took it and read
it almost fell out, says hurry home. Your wife just died.
I don't know how you would accept that, but I
couldn't accept it at all, and uh, a friend of
(11:39):
mine put me in the car took me home. I
got home, I jumped out and ran in to see
if it was really true. And one of the goods,
just hearted, crying, said, NITTI just died, and it just died,
and it just died and fell.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
In the floored.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
The baby was left alive, but the next two days
the baby died.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Now what should I do?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Then? And there? And then they try to tell me
the things that was soothing to me, but none of
it's never been soothing to me from that day to
this day.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So he's going on, I'm like this for a few days,
and Theodore Fry decides, you know, I better do something
about this. So he says, you know, Dorsey, let's go,
let's have something to eat. Let's just go out, get out,
get some fresh air, let's talk.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
They'll do you some good.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So they go to this community center and have dinner,
and after dinner there's a piano there. It's a grand
piano there, and so Dorsey kind of wanders over to
the piano after dinner and starts playing Jesus keep Me
near the Cross, and he's thinking, this is my cross.
My wife is gone, my baby is gone. This is
my cross, just like Jesus. But he starts playing around
(12:52):
with the melody because he's a jazz blues train. He
kind of does little ornamentations and he comes across a
different melody, oh, different variation of the melody. He starts
putting words to it, Blessed Lord, take my hand, and
he's playing and He finally says, Fry, come over here,
listen to this song. And Fry comes over and he's
playing it, and Fry said, it sounds pretty good, but
(13:15):
why do you call him blessed Lord? And he said,
Lord is a blessing, that's what Dorsey says. Fry said,
why don't you say precious Lord. I said, okay, tries
precious Lord. It sounds pretty good, and.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
I'll call the Lord some one thing. And then one
or the other says said, no, that's not his name,
said precious Lord. I say that does sounded good. And
he's got several amens precious Lord, and ladies and gentlemen,
believe it or not. I started singing red Den in there,
(13:47):
proracious Lord, My.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Me, me.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And let miss I am tied.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You. He introduces this song to the congregation one Sunday morning,
right there after the funeral service.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
He's written the song, and.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
He's thinking, this is his testimony, this is my testimony.
Take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. I
am weak, I am worn. But the congregation hears this
and they just tear that church up. They're up shouting,
they're up, their hands are raised. People are in the
aisles Dorsey's confused. He thinks this is a very personal
(14:48):
song of my personal testimony. I should be the one
feeling sorry. But he had sort of captured the grieving
of the migrants and all African Americans in Chicago at
that time. It was their testimony too, even among older
settler blacks who looked down at the new migrants, you know,
(15:10):
thinking they don't know how to act, they don't know
how to dress, they don't know how to do do do.
So this was a group of people who felt like
strangers in a strange land. And I mean, you can't
even turn sometimes to your own church for guidance because
they're whispering prayers and they're singing these lofty anthems, and
this is nothing like by Baptist church in the South.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Where do you turn? And it was take my hand
and the Lord was the last place to turn.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
And this was the way that this song connected. And
from then on, take my hand, Precious Lord became sort
of an anthem of grieving and sort of asking for
that last bit of help.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
My only sort of strand of.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Hope is in the Lords load.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
Take my hand, lead me on. I'm we.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Through the story.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
To take my hand precious low.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Lead.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Leo Tolstoi wrote, Art conveys to others feelings he has experienced,
and other people are affected by these feelings and live
them over in themselves. And that's the thing is Dorsey
was writing this song as sort of a Catharsist for himself.
He was getting out all his grief of the loss
of his wife and son and calling on the Lord
(17:04):
for help. He really was needing that hand to lift
him up and lead him on to the light, because
there was no light.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was darkness around him at that time.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Inadvertently or through the grace of God, he inspired others
to realize that was their message as well. A gospel
singer here in Chicago named Betty Lester said to me,
she said, even in the forty fifty sixties, she said,
listen for black people, sometimes gospel music was all we had,
but those songs kept us going. And I think that's
(17:34):
what to Tolstoy's point, Art from one person becomes another
person's testimony. And it has always seen to me in gospel,
the best songs are written out of times of terrible
turmoil in one's life. These are the songs that just
burst out of your soul. And I would say of
all of Dorsey's songs, certainly he had hundreds, but Precious
(17:57):
Lord has lived so long because it is that catharsis
that last opportunity to really just say help me. It's
like Chris Kristoffersen's help me Jesus. I don't know where
else to turn. And as long as there's trouble in
the world, there will be Precious Lord, take my hand.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Take my hand, Precious Lord.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Me And a terrific job on the production, editing and
storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and our own Reagan Habib,
and a special thanks to Robert Morovich, the founder and
editor of the Journal of Gospel Music, telling this story
(18:45):
not just of Thomas Dorsey, but the story of Thomas
Dorsey's most precious and most popular song, Take My Hand,
Precious Lord, and how it came to be out of
great grief and tragedy, and out of that brings this
remarkable song. And when it was played at church soon thereafter,
(19:05):
Torsey didn't expect anything. It was his own personal testimony,
but the church exploded because it was there grief he
was tapping into the story of take my Hand, Precious Lord,
and Thomas Dorsey's story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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