Thomas Andrew Dorsey Biography

Encyclopedia of World Biography on Thomas Andrew Dorsey

Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1900-1993), often called the Father of Gospel Music, migrated from Atlanta to Chicago as a young man, thus exemplifying the experience of many southern blacks of his day. This journey is also critical to an understanding of what Michael W. Harris called "the rise of gospel blues" in his book of that title, which chronicles the role Dorsey's music played in urban churches.

There was a great deal of early resistance to Dorsey's work, partly because it was rooted in the rural southern African American culture from which the old-line urban churches sought to distance themselves in favor of assimilation. These churches discouraged expressive congregational participation and attempted to incorporate white church traditions in both service and music. In addition, the blues factor of the gospel blues equation had associations with secular venues and activities often discouraged by the church. It is perhaps Dorsey's greatest achievement that he was able to overcome this opposition and thus preserve important aspects of black musical expression as it had existed in both the spiritual and secular realms.

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