Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the father of gospel music, died on January 23, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois at the age of 93.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the father of gospel music, died on January 23, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois at the age of 93. He is interred there in the Oak Woods Cemetery. Earlier in his life he was a leading blues pianist known as Georgia Tom. As Georgia Tom, he teamed up with Hudson “Tampa Red” Whittaker with whom he recorded the raunchy 1928 hit record "Tight Like That", a sensation, selling seven million copies. In all, he is credited with more than 400 blues and jazz songs. Personal tragedy led Dorsey to leave secular music behind and began writing and recording what he called "gospel" music. He was the first to use that term. His first wife, Nettie, who had been Ma Rainey's wardrobe mistress, died in childbirth in 1932 along with his first son. In his grief, he wrote his most famous song, one of the most famous of all gospel songs, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord". Unhappy with the treatment received at the hands of established publishers, Dorsey opened the first black gospel music publishing company, Dorsey House of Music. He also founded his own gospel choir and was a founder and first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. He 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. His papers are preserved at Fisk University, along with those of W.C. Handy, George Gershwin, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.