MPR: The Father of Gospel Music Remembered

The Father of Gospel Music Remembered
By Dan Olson
July 22, 1999

This year marks the 100th birthday of the three legendary black composers - Duke Ellington, William Dawson and Thomas Dorsey. Thomas Dorsey, not to be confused with the big-band leader, is the father of black gospel music. St. Paul gospel singer Thelma Buckner met Dorsey and talked about his legacy with Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC is built on bedrock tunes like Thomas Dorsey's "The Old Ship of Zion", sung in 1948 by Norsalus McKissick.

Thomas Dorsey

Contemporary singers like Kirk Franklin are exploring the edge of black gospel music. St. Paul gospel singer Thelma Buckner likes both but admits she has to adjust her gospel antenna for the newer music.

Buckner: I have to listen really close to find out it's really gospel. And then about three or four lines down, I hear something about God or it says something about religion.

Thelma Buckner, a preacher's daughter, is also a minister. On many Sundays she's at the grand piano half an hour before the service begins at her church, Gospel Temple in St. Paul.

For More Information

Visit the Thomas A. Dorsey Foundation Web Site.

Wearing a white dress, a broad-brimmed white hat on her head, Buckner warms up the churchgoers. One by one, she invites members to step forward and join the church's band - three guitars, drums and an organ. Glenda Collier's backup vocalists are her daughters.

Thelma Buckner says in her church, as in many black churches, gospel music is an essential part of the service.

Buckner: Gospel music, we just don't have church without gospel music. Gospel music, it has the swing we need, you know, the rock...

Thelma Buckner met Thomas Dorsey in Minneapolis 30 years ago. He was performing, and guest-conducting a church choir where she was a soloist. Buckner was self-conscious about her piano playing, thinking she wasn't good enough to play in public, until she saw Dorsey accompanying the choir.

Buckner: And he played with his two index fingers. Two fingers! And that inspired me to play in front of anybody, I don't care how great a musician you are, I said, "hey if Tommy Dorsey can get away with playing with two fingers, I can use all ten of mine on the keyboard."

Thomas Andrew Dorsey was born July, 1899 in Villa Rica, near Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. His mother was an accomplished organist. He gained fame as show business piano player "Barrelhouse Tommy", then, later, "Georgia Tom." In 1983, when Dorsey was 84, he talked about his blues fame and one of his big hits "How Can You Have the Blues?" sung by Kansas City Kitty.

In 1930, Dorsey returned to his religious roots and composed gospel tunes. Thelma Buckner says at first church members did not warm to his compositions.

Buckner: The church people resented him because he was a blues musician and didn't for years want to accept his religious music and church people, you know, church people sometimes can be hard to get along with. We good church people have a hard time accepting things we're not used to and Tommy had a little problem for awhile, but he was persistent, he just kept on.

Thomas Dorsey rehearsing "Take My Hand Precious Lord" with Mahalia Jackson.

Dorsey's best known composition is "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Late in life, he sang it at a national gospel convention. Inspiration for the song came from a family tragedy. Dorsey was on a national tour in 1930 when he got a call from Chicago that his wife had died in childbirth. Thelma Buckner.

Buckner: The baby lived and he got there two days later to see the baby, and two days later the baby died, and Tommy was one torn up and distraught man. And he sat to the piano where he can somehow or another he can get some relief and started playing and singing, and it just came to him "precious Lord take my hand, lead me on, let me stand..."

Blues and gospel music composer Thomas Dorsey died in 1993 at age 94. His songs are a staple of Sunday morning services in thousands of American churches. There are many memorable performances of "Take My Hand Precious Lord" including one in 1968 by the late Marion Williams, just after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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