However, both used their voices in very different ways-one chooses retribution and the other, engagement. Anthony Heilbut writes that "the few days following his death, 'Precious Lord' seemed the truest song in America, the last poignant cry of nonviolence before a night of storm that shows no sign of ending". People are singing because it feels good! The film also explores the role of the Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad. Dorsey found refuge in downtown Atlanta's black community. Played for parties and bordellos in Atlanta; became music director of New Hope Baptist Church, Chicago; performed with the Whispering Syncopators, early 1920s; as "Georgia Tom," debuted, with Ma Rainey, at Grand Theater, Chicago, 1924; composed "It's Tight Like That," 1928, and "Precious Lord," 1931; became music director of Pilgrim Baptist Church, Chicago, 1932; with blues singer Sallie Martin, formed National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, 1932; became minister, 1960s; featured in BBC documentary, 1976; with gospel singer Willie Mae Ford Smith, featured in documentary Say Amen Somebody, 1984. The pressures of touring overwhelmed him, and Dorsey considered suicide. Dorsey was the first black person to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The first was Thomas A. Dorsey, known as the father of gospel music. Made by fans in Aotearoa New Zealand. Now at the center of gospel music activity in Chicago, Dorsey countered his bereavement by immersing himself in marketing his songs. Turner encouraged his followers to find God from within. Hundreds of thousands of newly arrived migrants from the South, with an appreciation of blues, began to outnumber an older guard of ministers and parishioners who favored classical European music in services. Learn more. "It's just a feeling within; you can't help yourself," Smith says in the film, describing the experience of singing gospel. Lornell, Kip, "Dorsey, Thomas (18991993) Blues and Gospel Musician and Composer". 1: Songs And Singing As Church. Thomas A. Dorsey | Songwriters Hall of Fame They pray for their ancestors and seek to heal the country's wounds of slavery through prayer vigils at historical slave sites. In 1925, he married Nettie Harper, who Rainey hired as a wardrobe mistress despite her inexperience, so she could join Dorsey on tour. A Moment with Thomas Dorsey, from the Movie Say Amen, Somebody [23] Faced with rapid changes, old-line church members who preferred formal, more sedate music programs objected, leading to conflicts in and between Chicago's black churches. Through their work, Dorsey & Williams create new expressions of faith. At the time, Nierenberg was looking for a follow-up to his award-winning 1979 tap dance documentary, No Maps on My Taps, when he had dinner with musician Ry Cooder. 2015 NHD Thomas A Dorsey Documentary - by Adero Brooks RicardoBDC 23 subscribers Subscribe 6K views 7 years ago "Make A Joyful Noise" is the 2015 - 1st place winning documentary entered into. With church no longer the focal point of his parents' lives, his connection to organized religion waned. Patty Thomas - Wikipedia He was ordained a minister in his sixties, formalizing the union of song and worship; the Pilgrim Baptist Church created the T. A. Dorsey Choir to honor him in 1983. In 1931, Dorsey experienced great personal tragedy again: the death in childbirth of both his wife and newborn son devastated him. Just a genuine soul of a man. Everything I do - that's good, at least - is a reflection of His hand. Those sisters will forever be in my heart.. An unintended consequence of his sales strategy helped spread gospel blues, as he worked with numerous musicians who assisted in selling his sheet music traveling to churches in and around Chicago. As the popularity of the blues increased in New York and Chicago, especially among non-black audiences, Dorsey was able to adapt his style to the tastes of the day, though singers like Bessie Smith, who embodied the southern tradition, were also popular, especially among black Americans. [30][31], Dorsey lived a quiet life despite his influence. Mahalia Jackson sang at his funeral when King did not get to hear it. Thank you for your article..maybe I was meant to hear this song and maybe like Thomas Dorsey it will be a turnaround for me too, eval(decodeURIComponent('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%5c%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%48%65%63%74%6f%72%20%4d%2e%49%72%69%7a%61%72%72%79%20%26%6c%74%3b%68%6d%69%72%69%7a%61%72%72%79%40%6b%6e%6f%6c%6f%67%79%2e%6e%65%74%26%67%74%3b%5c%22%3e%48%65%63%74%6f%72%20%4d%2e%49%72%69%7a%61%72%72%79%3c%5c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')). He moved to Chicago and became a proficient composer and arranger of jazz and vaudeville just as blues was becoming popular. He wrote over 400 compositions, but it is for Take My Hand, Precious Lord that he is best known. With his brother Jimmy, Dorsey helped define American popular music from the 1920s through the mid 1950s. In 1916, he left Atlanta for good. Thereafter, he vowed to concentrate all his efforts in gospel music. He said that he suffered a debilitating stroke last year and expressed disappointment that she did not reach out. But it hasn't been seen in theaters in nearly 30 years. Dorsey served as the music director at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church for 50 years, introducing musical improvisation and encouraging personal elements of participation such as clapping, stomping, and shouting in churches when these were widely condemned as unrefined and common. He is a truly mesmerizing figure, the stuff of which legends are made. In The Rise of Gospel Blues Harris noted, "Other than slave spirituals, the white Protestant hymns and shaped note music, Dorsey describes a type of 'moaning' as the only other style of religious song he recalls." The unsteadiness grew worse, leaving him unable to practice, write or perform. The Dorsey family relocated from rural Villa Rica, GA to Atlanta in 1908. From God, for God and His People: "Peace in the Valley" 84.00. . He began studying piano and organ. I hope others will take the time to research the real facts and give Thomas A. Dorsey credit for his great Gospel works. Music performed in established black churches in Chicago and throughout the U.S. came from hymnals and was performed as written, usually as a way to showcase the musical abilities of the choirs rather than as a vehicle to deliver a specific spiritual message. Although Dorsey claimed to have been thrown out of some of the best churches, Harris observed that the time was right for Dorsey's eventual success; there were increasing numbers of store-front churches that appealed to southern migrants, and there was a booming trade in recorded sermons of the type Dorsey's father might have delivered. Amazon.com: Say Amen, Somebody : Thomas A. Dorsey, Mother Willie Mae A new 4K restoration of Say Amen, Somebody opens at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, September 5, featuring an a cappella gospel performance by Songs of Sol. Combs says the filmmaker recorded a crucial changing of the guard between generations. See production, box office & company info. Before long he was back to writing and performing secular blues, and in 1928, "It's Tight Like That" became a hit, selling seven million copies. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Really curious what happened to the speaking-in-tongues charismatic preacher who tried to guilt his wife into staying home with him instead of going on tour, the closest thing to a villain here. Check out Charles Pike in the extras. Young Dorsey was also influenced musically by his mother's brother, an itinerant blues musician, and by her brother-in-law, a teacher who favored shaped note singing--also known as "fasola" (fa-so-la), a rambunctious, 19th-century congregational style propagated by songbooks and popular in the rural South in which four distinct shapes (the diamond, for one) correspond to specific notes on the musical scale. He was demoted a grade and ostracized by the other children. The first generation of gospel singers in the 20th century worked or trained with Dorsey: Sallie Martin, Mahalia Jackson, Roberta Martin, and James Cleveland, among others. I love it. Never was released on dvd, only tape way back when. I grew up going to countless churches when I was younger and it was always something special to walk into a black church and feel the power that was behind the walls. [45] Choruses were stocked primarily with women, often untrained singers with whom Dorsey worked personally, encouraging many women who had little to no participation in church before to become active. Dorsey visited doctors, sought treatment, took time off. A tour group of 150 demanded he sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" right there. Thomas Andrew Dorsey, singer, composer, born Villa Rica Georgia 1 July 1899, died Chicago 23 January 1993. . "Thomas Dorsey, Father of Gospel Music, Dies at 93". The reporter found a collector so consumed by the need to. Dorsey began developing a sacred music based on the secular blues. Thomas A. Dorsey documentary rough cut - YouTube Less than a year later, however, Dorsey was back in the secular blues business full-time. The cathartic nature of gospel music became integral to the black experience in the Great Migration, when hundreds of thousands of black Southerners moved to Northern cities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., and especially Chicago between 1919 and 1970. As a result, his sales pitches and chorus performances were not always well received. ", So, in this recently restored film -- by Milestone Films with support from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Academy Film Archive, and the Criterion Collection --. "[37][27] Dorsey began to slow down in the 1970s, eventually showing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Dorsey's mother took work as a domestic servant; his father curtailed his pastoring and worked as a laborer. Ma Rainey's Pianist Thomas Dorsey "Say Amen, Somebody" (1982) 'Say Amen' focuses on Thomas Dorsey and Willie Mae Ford Smith, two lifelong gospel performers who spend their golden years barnstorming to small churches and congregations, where they perform, spread the gospel, revisit their old stomping grounds, and tell their. Thomas Dorsey 1899 - 1993. And its a terrific good time. Uncle Roger did not oversell it. [3], The Dorseys moved to Atlanta to find better opportunities when Thomas was eight years old. Loved the film!! (For more of Thomas A. Dorsey's work, see also "Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey," added to the National Registry in 2002.) [5][7], Two of his secular songs were recorded by Monette Moore and another by Joe "King" Oliver, ensuring Dorsey a place as one of Chicago's top blues composers. In that film, after being helped into a room, he addresses a group of people, moving comfortably in and out of song all the while. That's not surprising, but it is surprising that the filmmakers exposed it as they did because it's quite unflattering. * Live TV from 100+ channels. Looked for it for years. +2.80 +3.45%. Thomas A. Dorsey was one of the gospel pioneers profiled in George Nierenberg's Say Amen, Somebody. [4], Seeking a greater challenge, Dorsey relocated to Chicago in 1919, where he learned that his style of playing was unfashionable compared to the newer uptempo styles of jazz. [2] Called the "Father of Gospel Music" and often credited with creating it, Dorsey more accurately spawned a movement that popularized gospel blues throughout black churches in the United States, which in turn influenced American music and parts of society at large. It left me wanting more. Then, he began to think more seriously about his faith. Reflection There is no word more precious than peace, nor a more joyous state of being for a Christian, than to know God's peace. As the blues grew in popularity in the 1920s, black churches condemned it widely for being associated with sin and hedonism. When Muhammad's son, Warith Deen, assumes leadership after his father's death, he transforms the organization to follow the practice of orthodox Islam (Louis X. Farrakhan resurrected the ideology of the old Nation of Islam in 1978). The documentary follows their lives from the early days and leads up to a big conference when the two dynamic subjects share an auditorium. Documentary clip on Thomas Dorsey - YouTube Nix elongated some notes to emphasize specific syllables and words and sped up others. Six years later, he teamed with Mahalia Jackson, and the team ushered in what was known as the Golden Age of Gospel Music. Dorsey himself became known as the father of gospel music. According to Harris, by then Dorsey's piano style was already somewhat out of vogue. As George T. Nierenberg guides us through its relatively brief history, we come to see that. However, mainstream churches rejected his songs. Say Amen, Somebody - Wikipedia He was demoted a grade and ostracized by the other children. Instead, George Nierenberg made a beautifully shot and edited film about the legacy and spirit of gospel, complementing the wildly infectious good will and intense devotion of church performances with his thoughtfully paced portrait of the families and communities who sustain this ecstatic genre. Peter Levinson tells Linda Wertheimer about his biography. He gained fame accompanying blues belter Ma Rainey on tour and, billed as "Georgia Tom", joined with guitarist Tampa Red in a successful recording career. The narrow focus of this doc lets us really dive into the world and upturn the furniture rather that only tread upon the surface of the genre and its leaders. Loved it. Dorsey died of Alzheimer's in 1993, listening to music on a Walkman. As beautifully affecting and uplifting as nearly any narrative tale could be, but with a depressing undercurrent as harrowing as those final minutes of THE IRISHMAN. Easily one of the best music documentaries I have ever seen, this film could have coasted on the charisma and brilliance of its subjects, primarily Willie Mae Ford Smith and Thomas A. Dorsey, seminal figures in the history of Black gospel music. Dorsey co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1933. By 1920, Dorsey was prospering, but the demanding schedule of playing at night, working at other jobs during the day, and studying in between led him to the first of two nervous breakdowns; he was so ill that his mother had to go to Chicago to bring him back to Atlanta. And a good Christmas gift. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them gospel, including "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley". His association with musicians there encouraged him to practice at home on his mother's organ, and by age 12, he claimed that he could play the piano very well. Black gospel choirs were asked to perform at several white churches in Chicago. : "The Secularization of Black Gospel Music" by Heilbut, Anthony in, This page was last edited on 19 April 2023, at 17:18. This Far by Faith . About the Series | PBS I owned it years ago on VHS. As he said in The Rise of Gospel Blues: "If a woman has lost a man, a man has lost a woman, his feeling reacts to the blues; he feels like expressing it. Saw the original release. did they follow in his foot steps? There, Dorsey remained active until the 1970s, when failing health forced him into semi-retirement. As a native Georgian I was pleased to have met Mr. Dorsey back in the early 70's. We feel the purity of expression here and see very little of the commercial trappings we see in so much of organized religion. While presiding over rehearsals, Dorsey was strict and businesslike. My soul was a deluge of divine rapture; my emotions were aroused; my heart was inspired to become a great singer and worker in the Kingdom of the Lord--and impress people just as this great singer did that Sunday morning." Try it free. It is the story of two sourthern migrants, Rev. Film Critic Roger Ebert listed this as the 8th best film of 1983. The Duchess of Sussex's father, 78, claimed in the Australian news programme 7News Spotlight that his daughter had not called him in four years.. By the time Ma Rainey finished her song, she was "in her sins" - and Georgia Tom was right there with her, his rhythmic piano filling the grooves. Then, in August 1932, Dorseys life was thrown into crisis when his wife and son died during childbirth. And he would sit at the piano and play something and say, 'That's good stuff! In actual fact, his first musical impact was as a blues stylist as both writer and performer. He returned to blues, recording "It's Tight Like That" with guitarist Hudson "Tampa Red" Whittaker despite his misgivings over the suggestive lyrics. Dorsey described it as "good news on either side." Copyright 2003 The Faith Project, Inc. All rights reserved. Indeed, in the late 1920s, he would begin work with one of the great gospel soloists of all time, Mahalia Jackson. Author Anthony Heilbut summarized Dorsey's influence by saying he "combined the good news of gospel with the bad news of blues". At the beginning of worship services, Dorsey instructed choruses to march from the rear of the sanctuary to the choir-loft in a specific way, singing all the while. Say Amen, Somebody - Letterboxd Music publisher. At eleven, he left school to take a job at a local vaudeville theater. A Moment with Thomas Dorsey, from the Movie Say Amen, Somebody - YouTube from The Movie, Say Amen Somebody from The Movie, Say Amen Somebody AboutPressCopyrightContact. hide caption. Some objected to the degradation of worship through blues shouting. As Dorsey is remembered as the father of gospel music, other honorifics came from his choirs: Sallie Martin, considered the mother of gospel (although Willie Mae Ford Smith, also a Dorsey associate, has also been called this), Mahalia Jackson, the queen of gospel, and James Cleveland, often named the king of gospel. ABOUT THE EPISODE, Faith sustained black families through the oppression of segregation in the 1940s and 1950s. The biggest hinderance to the next thing God wants to do is the last thing God did. In so many words, it's about rising above poverty while still living humble deserting the ways of the world while retaining its best tunes. I think about all these blue-collar people who had to deal with Jim Crow, meager salaries, and yet the maid who cleaned up somebody else's house all week long, the porter, the chauffeur, the gardener, the cook, were nobody. Dorsey returned to Chicago in 1921, and his uncle encouraged him to attend the National Baptist Convention. Yoruba originated in West Africa and pre-dates Christianity. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. In 1923, he became the pianist and leader of the Wild Cats Jazz Band accompanying Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, a charismatic and bawdy blues shouter who sang about lost love and hard times. I guarantee you watching this program you will be touched in same way watching this show!! [1] Billed as "Tampa Red and Georgia Tom" and "The Famous Hokum Boys", the duo found great success together, eventually collaborating on 60 songs between 1928 and 1932, and coining the term "Hokum" to describe their guitar/piano combination with simple, racy lyrics. At their debut, Frye strutted up and down the aisles and sang back and forth with the chorus, and at one point Dorsey jumped up from the piano stool in excitement and stood as he played. Thomas A. Dorsey, Barrett Sisters, Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, O'Neal Twins, Nierenberg, George T., Zella Jackson Price, Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2023. He was soon making printed copies of his gospel blues, but since he relied on the performer to embellish the music, they did not sell well. The documentary features interviews with their friends and families juxtaposed with some awe-inspiring gospel music that is guaranteed to put a smile on your face! Apparently, this is a common phrase for a preacher to employ when looking to foster agreement. "Dedication: Thomas Dorsey Dedication Day". Dorsey described to his biographer, Michael Harris, how Haley pulled a "live serpent" out of his throat. [6] The experience prompted him to copyright his first religious song in 1922, "If I Don't Get There", a composition in the style of Charles Tindley, whom Dorsey idolized. eval(decodeURIComponent('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%5c%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6b%61%79%20%63%6f%79%6c%65%20%26%6c%74%3b%6b%61%79%65%63%6f%79%6c%6c%65%31%40%68%6f%74%6d%61%69%6c%2e%63%6f%2e%75%6b%26%67%74%3b%5c%22%3e%6b%61%79%20%63%6f%79%6c%65%3c%5c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')), I had never heard 'precious Lord,take my hand' until recently. He also toured extensively with Mahalia Jackson in the 1940s, who was by this time the preeminent gospel singer in the world. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images 'Say Amen, Somebody,' George Nierenberg's Gospel Documentary Is Re It tells the stories of Sojourner Truth and Denmark Vesey.
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