Thomas Dorsey

S = Standifer
D = Thomas Dorsey
H = Dr. Hannah

S Today we are talking to Mr. Thomas Dorsey, the father of the gospel, one of the illustrious citizens of Chicago, of the United States, and indeed of the world. The material that you are about to see and hear would be ultimately housed in the Eva Jessie collection of AfroAmerican materials and a collection of notable musicians throughout the world which is housed at the University of Michigan. This is sponsored by a National Endowment of the Humanities Grant and is very likely that this material will be housed by the government so that my grandchildren and my great-great grandchildren can come back some day and look at this tape and see Mr. Dorsey talking about Mr. Dorsey. With that, I would like to ask a question which, in essence, sort of introduces all of us to you. Where were you born Mr. Dorsey?
D Villarica, Georgia

S What's that name again.
D Villarica, Georgia

S Villarica, boy that's a tongue twister. Is that near any big place that we might know.
D 30 miles out of Atlanta.

S That's good. You know most people when they say a little town, I'm from Itasca, Texas, I told one of your friends and associates, Dr. Hannah, and he was very polite. He didn't say where is that, and I had a little suspicion that he knew so I said its not very far from........ So Villarica is about 30 some odd miles from Atlanta, I see. When did you come to this part of the country, the Midwest?
D It has been a long time, I have forgotten. I have been hear a number of years. But I came to the Midwest, and the north also I wanted a better position, prosperity, for music and for everything that I am here, I got it.

S Were you a child when you came up or were you a young man?
D I was a man.

S As a child, what are some of the things that you did as a little boy. Did you play piano, did you play ball, did you do everything that every child does?
D That's all I did do, I played the organ, my mother's organ. My mother was an organist in my father's church and I learned to play the organ and played all the ball I could and went fishing, we lived ....

S Well, you mentioned that you played the organ and you mentioned the church, and your mother related to the church, did you play mostly church music as a boy.
D Anything that came down. That came before me, I played everything, but naturally around the church folk I had to play the church music.

S Now, that brings up a good question. You said you had to play church music. I talked to Eubie Blake a few weeks ago and he mentioned you also and he said he had to play certain things for his mother, but he liked ragtime and that was sinful music as far as his mother was concerned, so he had to sneak to play piano rag. Did you have to sneak to play other things.
D No, I didn't. I could play anything I wanted to that I needed on my mother's organ. She didn't complain .... didn't take from me at all and I had good music. My family kinda liked the way I played.

S Were you the only child?
D No, no. there were about 10 of us.

S Ten. Where are you in that chronology? Which, are you number 6, number 7?
D No, I'm number 1.

S The oldest. How many brothers and sisters?
D Oh, there were so many that I've forgotten, half of them are dead. I had about 4 brothers and 3 or 4 sisters, one sister living.

S Are there any of the others that play, oh, is she here in Chicago?
D In Chicago, yes. She lives in Chicago.

S I see. Is she musically inclined?
D No, not at all.

S When did you first write, begin to write any music at all? To write down your ideas?
D ....years of music. It's been with me all my life. I started writing about music and copying music when I was quite a lad. I wanted to be a musician and everything came to musically I tried to get into it some way or other and try to get it into me. That started way back about 1908, 1907 something like that.

S When you first started copying down these musical tuns, did you know how to read notation?
D Yes, I could read pretty good. My mother was an organist at the church. She
taught me some. But I didn't need that.... I figures I didn't need it. So I became kind of a writer myself about music. I wanted to write my own music and have my own set-ups and arrangements. I guess I was about 8 years old when I started.

S Did the children kid you when you were at home practicing and playing the piano, especially other boys? Did they tease you?
D What they going to tease me about, they couldn't play.

S Well, I ask that question because I played piano as a child and a lot of my children are playing piano and very often they get teased, and I was teased, you're playing the piano.... oh, you old sissy, or this that and the other. I am always curious to ask that question of all the people, so I am asking you an old tried and true question, did they ever tease you at all?
D No, I didn't have any teasers. I was the oldest and the other children under me they were afraid to ask any questions. But now after I moved out I had many, many hundreds of questions asked, and I can't even recall them. But I just answered them to the best of my ability.

S Its probably a matter of time I guess. In the old days maybe when you were a boy, they were very proud to know that they had a friend that played piano, I assume.
D Oh, yes, yes. I was young, the girls wouldn't ever let me go. Always wanted to go and play for them.

S I'm going to skip all the way up to 1938. Today I saw an exquisite interview of you on Channel 38 here in Chicago and you spoke about "Precious Lord Take My Hand." 1938, is this the date that it was published or the date that it was written?
D That might have been one of the dates of the publishers.

S The publishing date.
D Yeh.

S When you got the copyright, I see. Well, tell me, what motivated you, what was the inspiration for writing this particular song,
D It is not a long story but there is a story that hurts me every time I have to tell it. My wife at that time, Lilly Harper Dorsey wanted to become a mother and I was out on the road with a show and I was going to be the happiest man in the world when I came back. But one night, I forget the town we was in, I telegraphed my wife ..... and I brought her a telegram to me, addressed to me,

S You were in St. Louis, weren't you?
D And I opened it and it said hurry home, your wife just died. What could I do there, I almost fell off my feet and a young man, I forget his name now, he had his car. He got it together and said come on I'll take you to Chicago. He did. I got there. It was the next morning when I got there and I ran in and I was living on 40th street, I had my music place and everything there. I jumped out of the car and ran into the house and a lot of my relatives were there, they was crying, Mamie just died, ....Mamie's dead, all of that. Well, there was no chance for me to cry but I said where is she. But they wouldn't let me see her, and I never got a chance to see her until two or three days later but there was a fine looking baby there, a lovely looking baby.... trying to cry or do something, and I thank God for the baby. But that night the baby died. I didn't feel like cursing though, but I ....pretty near. That was the end of my family there.

S Well did you return back to the road and then wrote the song sometime later?
D I went back to the road, yeh. I had to go back to the road, my money was up there and the pay was much better. I couldn't stick around Chicago there with no job, nothing to do. I had to go back on the road. But I didn't stay. Took another man, fellow by the name of Sy Stems, gave him the job, the band and everything, and then I closed out

S Well now he.... what he's talking about. That was before your tragedy. He's talking about when you wrote Precious Lord.
D Wait a minute, let me get you straight. This all.... happened together. Precious Lord, I can use that. Sy Stem just took the job that I had and I had money up there.
Hannah: Well now was that before you got, that was before you went back into church music
D Right after my wife died.

S Ok, alright. So a few weeks later, after your wife died, your baby died, then you began to compose
D Well, I was composing then, but .... composed somewhat in the manner that I do now.... "Precious Lord," everything that I have composed since then came out of that.

S Well tell me. Another thing that is always asked of so-called great composers is how long did you take to do this or that, which is a ridiculous question in a sense, but I want to ask that anyway. About how long did you sit in composing Precious Lord?
D I don't know,it didn't take me no two or three days. I just sat down and with a pencil and wrote.... what was coming to me and the next couple of days, not couple of days, the next week I had some copies printed, started giving them, out. Not music copies, just the words. A friend of mine, he says I want to call ir "Blessed Lord."....retire and I tried to get that Precious thing the way I wanted blessed, but I gave it to him and that

S Who was this friend?
D Oh, I forget his name now. He's passed anyway. He was a music, not a writer, but he was a musician around Chicago.

S So the Precious name was the word he snitched.
D If I hadn't stopped him ..

S What was the name you originally gave to it then?
D Blessed

S Blessed Lord
D Precious sounds better than Blessed, doesn't it, to you? ....saying it easier, you can sing it easier.

S I prefer Blessed, I am not sure why
D I am not taking the blessing,.... blessing from the Lord. I am talking about precious.... you can say it any way you want to. You got to use too much mouth and too much....

S Illustrate blessed
D ....You have to run through all that.

S Now how about precious
D . Precious. P, precious. You say it..... or to pronounce your.... they got a roll in, now

S I see. That is an excellent point. Tell me. If you had to categorize this song, would you categorize it as gospel, or
D Gospel, yes.

S Batted like gospel. It is gospel, that's the first thing.
D Good news. With good news I had bad news and brought be a tower of good news.

S Many people, especially of those common man, think gospel could be the up tempo, high syncopated, very overtly emotional kinds of music. Now there is nothing about that in Precious Lord. I find it very laid back, as the kids say.
D No. The gospel is just good news, whether you are singing it, or talking it, or trying to impart it to some stranger. Now if you put the music to these things and begin to sing, it makes it kinda changes it altogether. While we use music with these things, a lot of people don't understand the music, will understand the singer and a lot who understand the singer may not understand the music, but music is the thing that is in the world.... I tried to ask fellows great musicians how long, when did music start.

S So the name gospel, then, I mean I remember as a kid, I'm an AME Methodist and our preacher preached gospel.
D Preached gospel. My dad preached it.

S Right, but now you are applying gospel to music, sing gospel. And what is gospel? Can you define it?

S I don't know.
D Gospel is a good music sent down from the lord to save the people. That's all you got to make out of it.

S And you are putting musical accompaniment to that.
D That's right. And the people didn't know, they, didn't know what it was But after they began to know what it was and began to get an explanation, it swept the world, not only the country, it swept the world. I've been to Europe and all down in the southern parts of Europe and that's.... the Precious, Lord Take My Hands

S So the words are extremely important in gospel because if you take that same music and apply maybe secular words and maybe become rhythm and blues. Is that a fair....
D .....do anything I wanted to as far as that is concerned. Blues has its place, and I was a good blues producer. Gospel songs has its place. And I left blues, they kinda got to where they wouldn't pay off and I gave all of my time to gospel songs. I made more out of gospel songs than ..around the world gospel songs than I would have ever gotten with the.... music they can.... upon me.

S I'm going to come back to that blues question shortly, but I want to pursue some of the inner workings. We're musicians here also so we can talk about aspects that are musical about gospel. Is it fair to say that a great deal of gospel you could have a 1, 2, 1, 2, or 1,2,3,4, the accent on the second beat. So much western music has accent on the first beat, that's a general statement.
D That's a big question. It depends upon where you are trying to carry the gospel. You can carry it as slow as that. You can carry it as slow as that, etc., etc. And then you carry it like.... [demonstration] Depends upon what you got inside and what you are trying to say to the people. I don't mean with money now.

S Right, I did.
D .... to the minds of the people.

S I still ask this question because I sat with Mr. Cleveland and he did an awful lot of gospel, The Mighty Clouds of Joy, and we listened to records and records of Mahalia Jackson and I noticed that all of the fast up tempo gospel had the strong beat on the second beat, the accent. Now maybe this is because, it made it easy to move to. When I wanted to clap I went [demonstration] For some reason or other I just didn't want to clap 1,2,1,2, that way on any of the gospel that I have heard.
D There are different trades of gospel, or different kinds of gospel. Gospel is fast, gospel is moving along slowly, gospel with a beat and what we have done, we have tried to put gospel in the place where everybody could find it and could see it and could use it if it become their choice. Gospel is good music, that's all it is. That comes in your words, not in the music. Unless the music has some good words to it. Precious Lord Take My Hand you could do it, if you put something else to it and change it altogether.

S Well, would I be argumentative to say that I could take gospel words and put music that is very ungospel like it. Whereas you have taken it and made gospel because you chose certain kinds of musical language.
D Well, no.

S Whether it is chords, or
D ....all the musics, ragtimes, blues, all, I studied them all, I worked on them all, and gospel in itself is just good news from on high .... 70, 85, nearly 100 blues on my .... Ma Rainey in the early days when we were a recording. But, we are talking about gospel, good news that comes down from the heavenly father above. You can get a gospel .... together with a gospel singing gospel and you put another .bunch next door singing blues and I guarantee you the gospel will outweigh the blues.

S What are some of your favorite blues that you wrote.
D Oh, I have forgotten most .. I have to go to the file. But just what ever you thought about you write your blues and....

S Lets be commercial about it. Is there any one blues that you might have written that you might have made money from?
D I made my money from all of them.

S May be that's the best answer I can get.
D And if you come along and belongs to me I'm going to collect my money.

S Well, I asked some specifics because very few people that I've talked to can name any blues, including myself, the blues that were done by Thomas Dorsey. Even though we all know that you have done blues and I was trying to identify.
D .... come to me like that and I have been out of it for so
long.

S Did you ever write for anyone else besides Ma Rainey? Did you write for Bessie Smith?
D Anybody who wanted some music written, I wrote it.

S You provided them with .. Did you ever play piano or accompany any of the blues singers?
D Yes. I played too much piano .....

S What are some of the blues singers that you might have accompanied?
D You name one, I can tell you. There are so many of them.

S Do you know Erreal Montgomery? Little Brother.
D Little Brother, I knowed him....

S I talked to him a few weeks ago and he mentioned some club in Chicago that was very popular with blues singers and blues performers and he mentioned too that he had known you accompanying some blues singers. Dr. Hannah is sitting next to us here and I am sure that he is anxious to say a couple of words. Can you add anything at all to what we have said thus far, Dr. Hannah?
H Well, just let me say this. That most people when they define gospel music you find that they really don't define it. Now, Mr. Dorsey has already stated that gospel is good news and of course whatever says that makes it so, but what he brought to gospel music, what he brought to the church, is really what gospel music is. He had had an extensive life as a blues man. And as you heard him say, he had played for .... He had played for Kansas City Kitty. We have some recordings of blues numbers that he has written. But you have to remember is that gospel music has been influenced by all of the music that affects black people, and this has been his heritage. The slaves who came over with the chant because he is black he is an inherited that. The spirituals, the jubilee the Anglo-Saxon hymns that we inherited when we encompassed Christianity to all of this he brought that great blues flavor that he had and gospel music is all of this plus the blues flavor that Thomas A. Dorsey brought to it.

S I think that is an excellent explanation. I am going to ask Mr. Dorsey can he respond in any way to what you just said.
D Well, what he said goes well and is a part of the making. Blues is not a thing that's bad. To give you the real meaning of the blues, way you used to say it, it's not the end of big bands, its just a good warm feeling band. There's nothing wrong with blues itself, nothing wrong with the music, its the way, where you play it and what you do with it what you use it for. I'm still, I speak up for blues.

S You said something very interesting which in past, you say it is a woman feeling bad. Seemingly most of the blues singers were women, right?
D ....respectable woman.

S And in fact a very few successful male blues singers that we, I am thinking about the Bessie Smith's, the Ma Rainey's, the Sippy Wallace's, the Alberta Hunter. I just talked with Albert Hunter a few weeks ago. She too sends her regards. Everybody sends their regards to you.
D Yeh, we all worked it out together there, and made money too. There were some of the best paid blues singers when they started to recording these records.

S Lets move back to gospel a bit. I'm going to give some names and I would like for you to just respond to them by saying how you met them, or if you worked with them. For example, Sally Martin.
D ....Sally Martin, she's one of my props. I met Sally she was singing a song, straining herself to death, the way she was singing. And I was introduced to her.

S That was in 29, wasn't it. 1929
D I told her she was killing herself, the way she was straining and pulling that out. She said "well ....you show me how it is done." I said yeh, come over to my office and I'll show you. And she did. She came over there, I showed her how to hold her shoulders, she got her jaw open and worked at it for a while, six years right there in my office.
Hannah: Yes. She also said that she had heard your how about you, one of the earlier numbers and that it had moved her so much that she wanted to come and see the man that had written that how about you. So she said that when she walked in and she saw that you auditioned her. And you gave her a job and that is how she got started in gospel music. You taught her everything that she knows and she became the first national gospel singer in the country.

S About how old is Sally Martin now? Is she in her eighties?
Hannah: She is in her eighties, yeh. She's older than Doc here.
D She's maybe about a year or two older than I

S You're 81. When is your birthday.
D July 1

S July 1, I'll have to remember that. Mahalia Jackson?
D I don't know Mahalia's age, she never would tell. When I played I was her pianist a number of years, but she never would tell her age. But Mahalia, I don't think Mahalia's quite as old as I am.

S Did you accompany her a great deal, how did she work with you, how did she come to work with you.
D Well, she wanted a job and she was recording artist and she felt that I could do her some good and I started, teaching her the gospel songs as they are. She began to be booked regularly,....told her she'll be miserable and I was wrong..... told the people that they couldn't find anything better than Mahalia Jackson.

S What kind of things would you tell a person like Mahalia Jackson to do better or to do different.
D Well that I don't know.

S Well as a teacher, I guess. Most of our good students try to follow an example. But occasionally you might say now don't sing this way. Did you ever tell her not to do before
D If she wasn't doing it right I'd tell her....wouldn't let her do it. I'd teach her to do it to her advantage and the advantage of the listeners.

S Did she ever have any bad habits in singing. All vocal people seem to have some and a teacher has to either get rid of it
D What would you call a bad habit now?

S Anything that might have interrupted or disrupted her performance?
D I don't think they'd do that to her, disrupt a performance.

S Or made her performance less effective? Any bad habits.
D I can't see it like that. Unless they are trying to get in on the spot themselves. I don't remember anybody doing Mahalia, doing.... there ain't nobody like that. I've had people do little things and I tell them don't do that no more, and that's the end of it.

S Rosetta Tharpe
D I didn't know Rosetta as well as I do Mahalia but Rosetta, she's a
wonderful singer

S What about Clara Ward
D Clara Ward I think I am going to take her with me, man

S So you knew her as a little girl. Was she singing as a little girl.
D I knew her when she was a little child singing like that, and her sister too.

S What's her sister's name
Hannah: Willa

S Abertina Walker?
D I didn't know much of her, but I followed some of her works, she got over in big time for it

S In the big time?
Hannah: Yeh, she was with him at the Museum of Science and Industry when we did the Jubilee review.

S Albertina has done quite a bit in the Eastern part of the United States and in Washington D.C. of course she is very well known. Is she, does she have quite a different style from Mahalia or from Clara, more polished?
D I don't think you could call it a different style, but let me put it like this. My heavenly father is able to make you different from me and she different from you. What I am trying to put it like this is the Lord don't want you running into one another. I have a different style, I don't have no style at all.... I use four or five different styles, if I want to be different.......

S What about, speaking of styles and he has style, James Cleveland?
D Well, James has part of my style as far as that's concerned.

S Well, what part does he have?
D Well, I couldn't figure that out. I told him to always try to please his audience, whatever he had to do, please your audience..... quite a while. He got some of it from me and, of course, he didn't my type of music, he kinda got a style of his own.

S Mr. Cleveland does please his audience. I think we have to say that. Some musicians, however, say well but my art is much greater than trying to please an audience so I have to do what I have to do because this is the way I see my art, Do you feel that way too.
D I helped teach him what he knows....
Prof, S.: And he seems to be into that I think where well I have to do it this way because this is the way I think it has to be done whether the people like it or not. To repeat what was just said.....
D whatever you had to do please your audience and that's what they.....saying quite a while. He got some of it from me and, of course, he didn't need any coaching under my type of music, he kinda got a style of his own

S We were talking about the early years of gospel and knowing full well that many of the preachers preached gospel, but I am curious as to how did the ministers, the preacherE relate to gospel in the early years. Did they like it?
D Well, some of them did and some of them didn't..... several times I have been thrown out of some of the best churches. But they just didn't understand. They thought that gospel was going to become a great commercial thing and maybe even to where they would be making money for the church and things like that. But gospel....the way you explain it to them we didn't have any difficulties, but as I say I have put out of some of those same churches sent back and got me after they had an understanding. I didn't get big-git-ty put on airs or anything like that I just told it like it was....take it if you don't leave it.

S You mentioned understanding, does that understanding include the fact that the gospel singer wasn't a preacher?
D He could be a preacher if he wanted, he could sing.

S Didn't any of the preachers think that he was competing with the gospel singer very often, did they think they were?
D I don't know

S What was it they didn't understand about gospel?
D It must have the beat that you had I think that was more of it than anything else.

S They thought that it wasn't very religious?
D I thought it..... I don't know what they thought but they.... they didn ' t destroy, some came to beg pardon and take part, you know I didn't like that stuff when you started that gospel, thing but I like it now. We now features a gospel choir now.

S Speaking of gospel choir, what was your first choir and how many people did you have in it.
D Well, my first choir that I directed, that's what you said? .... beautiful church....-.

S Right in Chicago here?
D The pastor sent for me and I traveled around the country quite a
bit and to say I want one, I was assisting the late Frye at Ebenezer Baptist church.

S In Georgia, or here
D No, right here in Chicago. The pastor wanted a gospel choir and Mr. Frye had told him about, Frye and I had gone around places singing to people just taking it in. So Frye wanted to know if he could get a Frye at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The pastor said yes and Frye said come on, you know the music, I don't. And the man got the funniest rehearsal, we had 101 people in the church and from then on I began to train under Frye he began training me and then we would bring in other fellows who could help us. Right there, that is the seat of gospel choir.

S Now, how does Pilgrim figure into that now?
D I went with Ebenezer, well I Ill always remember some kind of memorabelia, I went to, I took Ebenezer's Gospel Choir over to Pilgrim, Mr. Frye, and we sang to Pilgrim and that night Pastor at Pilgrim called me up, said Dorsey I want .... the other night, can you get me one. I said I'll get you the best one in the world and I'm still there. You heard them sing, and I don't fool with them, they gotta sing or else go.

S How many choirs are there at Pilgrim now that you know of?
D I don't know....
Hannah: There are several
D There's about 10.

S What do you think about the young people singing gospel and many in Detroit where you were recently, there are two high schools that have gone overboard in just studying gospel
D Well, I'd like to ask a question before I answer that. Is there any harm in gospel?

S Could you ask that again?
D Is there any harm in gospel?

S I don't know
D Is there anybody you'd like to see not rise where they could rise from gospel. That's a good question.

S No
D Is gospel good news, that's what it is, has gospel ever hurt anybody or hurt the nations, or can you lay your hand on anything that gospel has hurt, unless they couldn't spell it. No. And gospel is good news from on high and if you reach it or accept that.....

S In the schools, do you think a music teacher's responsibility is to teach only gospel music?
D That depends upon what the school will allow. I have been to some and schools in the country, in Europe and.... and they received me with overjoy.... But one thing that we've got to even search for.... ministers and all, they have got to know we are in this thing altogether and no one side thing is going to work nowhere. We all get together and be as one on the same thing .... is one on this same thing, and we'll get along better even in our churches. There's a lot of churches can't get along together now. Why, I don't know.

S That brings up another question. At theses schools of course they are integrated now and some of the white kids don't like the gospel as much, but some of your music probably was made very popular by white singers. Peace in the Valley, for example, did you give that to the performer.
D I didn't give it to nobody....

S Who's that. Oh, Red Ford, Red Folley
D See gospel is kinda, how I think of it, when they thought of gospel they thought about somebody that's shouting and jumping and carrying on or something like that, but its not that, and I hope it would never be just that. But after we .... Mr. Frye we traveled this country over and at our own expense where they would let us in church, and that's the way it was built up and they never heard nothing like that. People would shout and have a good time and invite us back. There must be something there its they all likes. And I found it something that the Lord likes. It has taken its place all over the world now.

S Why do I feel so uncomfortable when I hear white, and excuse the expression, gospel music. I don't say uncomfortable but disoriented?
D Well, you just used to us. I'm used to all of them, even the foreigners. I've had them to sing it in foreign to me. Now, of course you know.... foreigners music or his words.

S I'm going to ask Dr. Hannah to relate to that question. I just looked at the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show with Della Reese. You know Della Reese, I am sure. It was interesting. I enjoyed what she was doing.
H She was the hostess to last year's Diviticus award where Dr. Drosey received the award. Let me just talk a bit about black and gospel music. What he said is that we are not used to hearing but some of the white singers that sing gospel music are far superior to some of the black singers.

S In what way?
H Well there is a girl out in California, Nancy Harmon. She can belt out a gospel song that would be equal to any black singer that I have heard.
Prof.S.: Is that of gospel of Rosetta Tharpe type award
H No, she is the gospel- I would call her the traditional kind of gospel singer. But, now, the difference, the main thing in black gospel and white gospel is the musical flavor. In black gospel it is the blues flavor, the beat. In white gospel it is more of a country, western style, a pop style. Now, the basic difference comes with the inflection of the voice. The speech pattern. All of that plays. You see, we can make little swirls and little curlacues. We don't say I sure do love the Lord, but Albertina says I sure do love the Lord. We know exactly what she is saying. A white singer would look kind of ridiculous saying Oh, Lordy, Oh, Lord..... But you see we can say those kinds of things cuz it seems to go with that sense of rhythm that we have and it seems to go with that dialect that we have. So that's where the difference lies. Not in the experience because everybody experiences religion basically the same. You know if you think you got religion, then religion isn't black or white. Mr. Dorsey said he wrote his music. He didn't write it for black and white, he wrote it for Christian, he wrote it to tell the good news. And the person could be green if they tell him the good news then he encompasses that gospel music. So gospel music isn't basically a black music, although its origin began with us, but its too vast to just encompass black only.

S Would you agree with what he said Mr. Dorsey?
D I certainly will. Music especially, there is no such thing as black music, white music, red, blue music. Music, if you are singing the right type of of music lets say, gospel, for the gospel. You know the gospel hangs.....and we can reach and get it in heaven alone they say.... So the gospel, the best way to put it is good news, and that's what the world needs, that's what everybody needs is good news. We walk into our homes sometimes and take the bad news just want to tell the good news. So that's what we have been planting in to not only this country but there are many other countries. Good news.

S And the text of Peace in the Valley, Precious Lord, the earliest song that you did, If you See My Saviour. What are some of the words to If You See My Saviour, I just don't recall that.
D Well, I can give you the, there is a young man that lived in the same building I did but next door. He was a young fellow, just coming on, he was just getting into music. His mother, Mrs. Minnie Dennis was her name, she was a great singer, gospel singer and she sang at that Pilgrim Church where I am now till she died. This boy, we loved him so, he come in there one night..... the bed, laid down and died..... my word, nobody, we couldn't get his mother straight right next door to me. And I didn't know what to tell her, the minister came, didn't know what to tell her and I says, took her downstairs, people is good news to the world, he was a singer, regardless of what he was singing he meant what he was singing gave most of his time to the church. Said well that's right, God bless him. And that was about the end of that. Then everybody started calling that type of music gospel music. Now I didn't give it the name, but they wanted it like that and I all over the world, and all get the point with anybody who said anything. Mr. D. say some of the words for him ....
D If you see my saviour..... tell him that you saw me and when you saw me I was on my way. I may meet..... you may meet some good old friend who may ask you for me. Tell them, I coming home some day.

S So this is as if you are talking to a man whom you know is about to die
D No, he don't have to be dying. We want that live man so we can die good.

S So if you see him let him know that I interested down here.
D Yes. If he's on his way.... he's on his way give him a message to carry.

S Now this was in 1929, right.
D I don't know
H 1929, almost 50 years ago.

S That's a beautiful story. Right here in Chicago.
D Right here in Chicago, sure.

S How many years have you been in Chicago? About 50, 60 years.
D I don't know. No, I come here in about 1914, 15 something like that

S Has Chicago been good to you, financially, socially.
D Well, I don't know what you call good. I'm eating. I wear what I want, and I go where I want and I have a few friends.

S Have you been honored by Chicago
D I don't know what you call honored by Chicago. The only well they paid me well

S Has there been a Thomas Dorsey day
D No, not in Chicago. But I used to work with this thing, they used to have at the park every year. I used to direct the music out there. Me, Wesley Jones and the big music. Fellows who could have handled out there.

S Did you have good agents or did you have an agent when you were
D What kind of agent

S For your performance or for your music
D No, I didn't like them, I was my own agent.

S And you had your own publishing company too didn't you
D My own publishing company

S Did you have an accountant or did you do that too
D I had to have an accountant, to pay my taxes.

S Did you make any money?
D I made money and right on top of that I'd say I lost money too

S That's business isn't it?
D That's business

S Would you consider yourself a good businessman?
D No

S A good musician?
D Better than

S That's almost the exact answer that Dizzy Gillespie gave me about six weeks ago, incidentally. He's said I'm a better musician than I am businessman, Jim. He said for some reason I don't have no patience with business. Let me ask you, are you still getting royalties on Peace in the Valley, Precious Lord?
D Well, that's a great question to ask a man. I don't know that. What I mean by I don't know where..... always bring the books together and see how we measured up this year against last year.

S Now I'm going to ask you a few questions
D ....not as good, as well as it used to be, no, if that's what you are asking me.

S Now I know that when one gets older things change so these questions may seem a little ridiculous but I want to ask them. Do you find your powers, your musicianly powers your powers of imagination, significantly lessened now, or are they sharper?
D Do I understand

S Music
D ....trying to say, am I weaker now than I was

S No, not so much. Are you a better musician. Are you writing better music now than you did
D ....better as the days go by. You are supposed to get better if you are an active musician.

S So are you saying that age has nothing to do with your
D No. Age.... so far. I don't know when it may stop.

S So you and people like Eubie Blake, and I talked to Charles Handy, you are the only ones that can answer these questions that's why I'm asking this. You are 81 years young now and when you were 71 years young or 61 years young, were you, do you think you were sharper, musically then?
D No, I think I was just as good then. I think I'm just as good now as I was then.

S Are you doing more or less?
D Less. I want to live.

S .....you do, that's an excellent answer. As you do less, is this
less better than what you did when you did more?
D Well, I couldn't say that. It depends on what there is to do and where it is supposed to find its place, but I.... like this, I do just as much now, more, than I did years ago. I can do more. I can write faster.

S Are you doing more?
D No.... No, I'm not doing, I'm doing more, I'm doing what my call is got to answer. No need to pile up a lot of stuff to get an appearance somewhere..... when you make your appearance you come out crying. Oh, we didn't make this and we didn't make that. I stopped them. I stopped giving appearances....
H Well, let me just say this to you just in case here. When he says more, I think that in his, at age 80, he was the first black composer ever so honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association International. That was October of last year. And this is the Award given to him. He is the only black composer in that hall of fame and probably will be for a long time. So in his later years they've began to appreciate that great art that he has and I think that this is an honor. This is not an honor bestowed on him by black people because they have not done so. But a white organization, totally white, that found in him the genius that we've just taken for granted.

S How did they discover this genius. Had he always
H Red Foley took Peace in the Valley and made a best seller out of it. Peace in the Valley was the only gospel song ever recorded on the old Lucky Strike Hit Parade. The only one. Precious Lord, the Translated, the only gospel song translated into over 20 languages. Royalties come in from all over the world for that song. So this was a song while written out of despair the man was heart broken and weary but you see we don't know what the Lord has in mind for us, but out of his agony he wrote a song that brought consolence to the whole world. It is the most widely song, religious song today. Everybody knows it. There isn't a single sole that doesn't know Peace in the Valley. So that you see in his later life, you know when he no longer plays anymore, but the man still dynamic. There's no one that can sing his music like him. That's why we did the first recording, in 50 years, nobody has asked him in 50 whole years, nobody asked him to record his music. And we did a recording, its called the Maestro sings his masterpiece. Its colassol.

S I notice that you have another award over hear, Dr. Hannah, what is that?
H Ok. This is another thing that we are particularly proud of because this year he was honored at Howard University and the communique that he got back said that its just unbelievable to know that we had the father of gospel music here, Howard University has been the better for having had his presence.

S Do you find that Chicago. I keep coming back to Chicago because its like the old saying about you're only without honor at home or something of that sort. I'm sure I got that messed up, but do you find that Chicago is awakening, seeing all these honors coming from outside of the city?
H I think that what it has done that since we have been working together it has been more apparent because, you know, I can kind of take it to places where it has never been before. But you see, we've just taken him for granted. He has been here, we know that he is here, and we just take him for granted. You see it always takes someone outside of your circle to really make you realize what he's had. Let me just explain somethings to you. There isn't any organization in the world that can say that they have a gospel music workshop anywhere, and not include him while he's alive. There is just no authenticity to it.

S What about the gospel convention
H Well, they can't talk about gospel music without including him. Anybody who does any research, the research is nil unless they include him. They have to come to him and get the information. This is the source of information. Right here is the origin. How can you go somewhere and quote somebody else when you have the one who is responsible for it living today. There should be an unbeaten path to his door. People should not even let him rest with all of the vast knowledge that he has. The interesting thing that one singer came up, a very popular gospel singer, and came up and said, oh, this is Dr. Dorsey, oh, I always wanted to meet you. I didn't know that you were still alive. How could she sing gospel music and not know the man who started it. This is a fallacy with the black people. We don't know our own heritage. We are people that spin records, we have gospel singers that sing, musicianE and you ask them what gospel music is, who was the founder, where was its origin, and they cannot tell you. They just simply cannot tell you. It is something that we have taken for granted.

S What about gospel singers themselves. I see it as a very loose knit group. Why is it that it is not as tightly knit as it could be?
H Cuz they don't work together

S Why don't they work
H They fail to work together. That's an unanswered question. I don't know why.
D One wants to outdo the other.

S It's very unusual, because musicians usually as choirs, they usually work together
D You see its church music
H Yeh. For a while gospel music was a very limited field. Only the select few now you see in its ha'-y day , in the beginning this was the ultimate authority. There was nobody else. This meant that he wrote music, he published it, he taught people how to sing his music

S Was that a monopoly
H That was a monopoly. He has the monopoly on it

S By choice or by.....
H By virtue of the fact that no one else could do it. Ok. By virtue of the fact that no one else could do it.

S Did that maybe sow the seeds for some of the jealousy that we see
among
H I don't know because you see with him, I'm sure that he's an artist and of course artists are tempermental, and Mr. Dorsey's temperamental. I'm not going to say that he's not. All artists are tempermental. But one thing he did, he taught all of the rest, all of the greats of gospel music stem from him. He taught Roberta Martin, ok. All of the greats of gospel music, and she was probably, she, probably next to him, is one of the greatest gospel personalities in the country. Even though Mahalia won great awards and she was the top singer, but Mahalia did not leave anything. Mahalia was not a writer. Mahalia did not develop singers as Mr. Dorsey and Roberta did.

S Well, you seem to suggest that if gospel singers put away some of the petty jealousies that there is no end to what gospel music
H There is no end, but they must work. It's all for the good of the Lord. It is supposed to be. So there should be no petty jealousy.

S I find it curious that church music, of all things, that this
H Well, church is all churches, there has always been conflicts in church. This is nothing new. Always been conflicts. But getting back to what we were saying about him. Now, it was Mr. Dorsey who advocated the gospel choir. organized the gospel choir and sing a Dorsey song.
D Oh, yeh, a Dorsey song.
H Organized a gospel choir and sing a Dorsey song. This is his motto. Ok now the thing that made him all-consuming is that he would go around to the churches and teach the songs to the choir and then sell his music. There was nobody else out there doing that.

S Do you have any other awards. You have a sheet there I know
H Ok this is going to be one of the sheets for a magazine article that we are doing, and on it we have the silhoutte of him and his greatest tune, the first tune, If You See My Saviour, Precisous Lord Take My Hand, Old Ship of Zion, I'm Waiting and Watching, and of course that's my favorite number. I think that that is the most beautiful number that he has ever written.

S How did that go
H Jesus is the Light. "There'll be Peace in the Valley"

S I'm Waiting and Watching, what is the melody to that.
D Waiting and Watching, singing a song ....
H That's another one. I'm waiting and watching....
D .....waiting for Jesus, he's waiting for me....

S Could you give me, I know this is a bit of If You See My Saviour. That story keeps going through my head as if its, could you also put the tune in my head, just the tune.
D If you see my saviour,.... Tell him that you saw me. When you saw me I was on my way ask him for me. Tell him I'll be coming home some day.

S You also have some of the most beautiful and expressive hands I have ever seen. I think Huey Blake is the only other man I've seen with such long expressive fingers and hands as you have.
D Well I make these hands talk, I make these fingers talk.

S I noticed that. I've been trying to get as much of it as I possibly can on here.
H One other thing that we are kinda of proud of and it is overdue and I don't know why none of the black colleges don't recognize the fact. I know that a lesser person in gospel music who has not contributed as much as he has has been awarded all kinds of honorary doctor degrees, ok. This is one of the first here, at least an American college in Indianapolis.

S Why do you restrict it to the black colleges?
H Well, just any college period.

S Well there is a reason I suspect the black colleges, he's our national treasure. I like to say that word, national treasure. Certainly the black colleges, in my mind should have a role, but I would hope that colleges such as the University of Michigan, and we want to get you there, would be one of the first. Like you say, there should be a beaten path to your door to try to get persons like you to be an honorary doctorate of our university.
D Well, I'd like to do what I could to, whatever the feelings may be about it but I have slowed down. I used to get around fast all over, go anywhere, but can't make it now. I want to live long, but I take it easier.

S What would you say to the young people, the young people who are in gospel music stay with it until they get out of high school and church but then they go into rhythm and blues. What would you tell them.
D Well if you are going to first, know what you want to do, what you want to be, then if you can rhythm and blues, go into that in a big way. If its gospel music, go into that in just as big a way as you would rhythm and blues.... for the church. I could go out here now and start singing blues and get a hearing. But that isn't what I want. That isn't what I want to put out my steam for. I want to put out my steam for something else that will help not only a few people, but help the world. Blues has its day, it stops at a certain place, but gospel songs has no stopping place. All over. We have had people in different nationalities accept our gospel. I told you I sung it all over Europe and down in southern Europe, down there where the fools are fighting now. I was booked to go to China and had my tickets and something broke out in China, they started a war and they was killing up people. I changed my mind. That wasn't me either, that was the Lord himself he wanted me to last long.... They had forgotten all about me, the gospel songs, everything else.

S One thing I have seen in common with many of the older persons I have interviewed. Now you, it seems natural because you are in gospel music, but they have become more religious Do you think that happens when we get older.
D That depends on what you call religion

S Well, it is that they have begun to talk more about God
D Well, let's put it like that.

S That's not necessarily religious
D A lot of folks religious.... do a thing about it. But talking more about God and you don't have to be religious to talk about God. Now what you bring into your religion is one of the things that God does.... something that his son did and which makes religion what it should be. I don't know if you believe that or not but that's what it is. Any person that, I've seen people going into a church and they just have a great time there, people accepted them beyond what they are worth, and then come out blabbing and talking about it.... which I think is bad. But the Lord don't have to give us anything if he don't want to. Now I could have gone back and been one of the greatest musicians in the world of music but I stayed here where the people needed me most and I could help people most and I've got a little credit for that than I would .... spending $4,000 or $5,000 trying to tell people.

S Thank you Mr. Dorsey. This has been a pleasure and I am sure a great deal of information will get to our public.

END OF INTERVIEW