“Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; Thru the storm, thru the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.” 

These very poignant, powerful and pleading words came to Thomas Andrew Dorsey during his period of mourning after the loss of his beloved wife, “Nettie,” and their newborn baby. 

Thomas A. Dorsey, “Georgia Tom,” as he was called while serving as pianist for the great blues singer, Gertrude “ma” Rainey, had heard the voice of God tell him to, “come out of the blues,” and changed his way of living. In making this change in his life Dorsey had heard many of the religious songs composed by Charles Albert Tindley and decided to try and compose songs in a similar style. 

Charles Albert Tindley (1856-1933) was born a slave in Berlin, Maryland. As child he had taught himself to read and became known as, “boy with the bare feet who could read.” He was called into the ministry and after several years of struggling he was made pastor of the very church in which he had earlier served as its sexton. when he started writing songs is not known however during his life, Tindley wrote such songs as, “Stand By Me,” “Nothing Between,” We’ll Understand It Better By and By,” Let Jesus Fix It for You,” and “Bread of Heaven.” Other musicians like Lucie Eddie Campbell William’s (1885-1963) followed Tindley’s style with songs like ,”Something Within Me,” and He’ll Understand And Say, Well Done and William Herbert Brewster (b. 1899) composed, “Move on Up A Little Higher,” and Surely, God Is Able.” However only Dorsey seem to have captured the true essence of Tindley’s formula which ,”concentrated on texts that gave attention to concerns of black Christians as worldly sorrows, blessings, and woes, as well as the joys of the after-life.” He also made great use of the pentatonic scale and allowed use of the so-called blue thirds and sevenths. And finally Tindley allowed for improvisation of the text, melody, harmony and rhythm which is a major characteristic feature in the music of black-American folk and popular music. 

By 1926 Dorsey had made some progress. His first success, “ If You See My Savior,” had been published and he began to make every effort to see that his success was heard around Chicago. However he had no idea of the opposition he would face from the pastors and church choir directors alike. They felt these songs had too much vigor and they did not want their congregation to be rocked and swayed. The major complaint from the ministers  
was that these songs were in strong competition with their sermons. Despite this opposition the ,”Dorsey Sound,” spread rapidly among small church congregations. It was during these early days that he met Sallie Martin and after some convincing, from her, agreed to teach her some of his songs. The results was a Thomas Dorsey/Sallie Martin union. As this union grew Dorsey met other young singers who were also eager to sing these early new songs. Many of those people were, Mahalia Jackson, Willie Mae Forde Smith, Clara Ward and Roberta Martin (no relations to Sallie Martin).

As Dorsey worked relentlessly to spread this new bluesy music around, an 19 year old young lady with flattering facility on the guitar was hired to perform with Cab Calloway at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, New York. Rosetta Tharp, was convinced in her faith and so effectively convinced other people that she was able to sing in both the Cotton Club and Churches as well. In 1939, despite her patronage with the cotton club, Rosetta Tharp rocked the Cotton Club with her song, “God Don’t like it.”

In yet another effort to solidify his sound and style, Dorsey, in 1932 along with Sallie Martin organized the first Black Gospel Music Convention - The National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. This effort brought Gospel singers and choirs together from all parts of the United States. In this effort Dorsey spoke in defense of this bluesy musical style in his opening address. He stated emphatically ,”the message is not in the music but in the words of the song. It matters not what kind of music or what kind of movement it has, if the words are Jesus, Heaven, Faith, and life then you have a song with which God is pleased regardless to what critics and some church folk say.” 

In the years that followed this,” Dorsey sound,” has been carefully nurtured by the likes of Roberta Martin, creating her own unique style then passing her skill and insight on to her pupil, James Cleveland. The Rev. Cleveland brought to this the power of his unique raspy sound painting us vivid pictures of Jesus calmly saying, ”Peace Be Still,” By the 60’s Gospel was well on its’ way to being an established form of religious music in America. During these very turbulent days of struggle a young man out of Oakland added to gospel a new popular sound that rocked America in the midst of all of the civil unrest. Edwin Hawkins borrowed an old church hymn and created a whole new sound in gospel with his Gospel arrangement, “O Happy Day.”  

Since the appearance of Edwin Hawkins on the Gospel scene, this music has rapidly spread throughout the world of music. In this modern era Gospel music has become an economic success that rivals jazz, blues, rock, R&B and even the classics. Much of the credit for this goes to, like Dorsey in his youth, the younger generation. Many of those to be mentioned are Andre Crouch, Twinkie Clark, Richard Smallwood, The Winans, Donald Vails, and the latest and most recent Gospel sensations, Kirk Franklin and Lamar Campbell. Even before these young Gospel Music icons a group of six young men calling themselves, Take 6, introduced strong Jazz idoms into traditional gospel songs that created yet another new sound in Gospel. All of these young Gospel artists have continued the Tindley/Dorsey legacy. They continue to keep us on the cutting edge of new sounds by clouding and distorting the lines of, “good respectable church Music.”