Thomas A. Dorsey

Thomas Andrew Dorsey, and Georgia Tom, ( born July 1, 1899 in Villa Rica, Georgia, † January 23, 1993 in Chicago) was blues and gospel singer and pianist.

Dorsey was the son of a Baptist preacher and a piano teacher and church organist nephew. But from the neighborhood, he was also exposed to other musical impressions: circus music, blues, vaudeville, hillbilly ballads, and the Revival Hymns of Billy Sunday 's cantor Homer Rodeheaver.

Later in his youth, he moved to Atlanta, where he worked as a piano accompanist and vocal coach, as for blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. In Chicago, where he studied composition and arrangement from 1916, he played at Rent - parties under the names Barrelhouse Tom and Texas Tommy. He became famous as Georgia Tom, along with his musical partner Tampa Red, with whom he had in 1928 with "It's Tight Like That " a big hit in the style of the so-called " Hokum Blues".

In 1925 he founded for Ma Rainey, the " Wild Cats Jazz Band ".

The raunchy lyrics of songs like "It's Tight like That" brought him some trouble one, for soon he was known as a gospel musician so than in the blues, and the gospel he had a slight but morally discerning audiences. He began to market his own gospel compositions. Including hits such as " It's A Highway To Heaven", the great hymn among the gospel song " Take My Hand, Precious Lord " marked by the distinctive sound of HB310, and contemplative songs as "What Then". He was the musical mentor of the famous gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and wrote the song for her, " Peace In The Valley ". He founded the first publisher of Black Gospel Music. Dorsey was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1994.

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• Dorsey in the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1994

• Jazz Pianist
• Boogie -woogie pianist
• Pianist
• Blues musicians
• Gospel Musicians
• American musician
• Born in 1899
• Died in 1993
• Man
• Grammy winner