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Transcription: [00:06:31]
There was a musician, a blues musician, from Georgia, from Atlanta. A man named, uh, well his name isn't important right now. [Thomas Dorsey]
[00:06:45]
The important thing is that he listened to this music and decided to compose on his own. He had done a few blues numbers and double entendre pieces like, "I like it tight like that" and some other things.
[00:07:00]
But he had a traumatic experience in his life. His wife and their unborn child, both died in childbirth.
[00:07:15]
He was traumatically taken over by it. And one of his, uh friends told him that the only way to come out of this is to compose, to write, to put yourself back into your work.
[00:07:27]
This young, heartbroken composer, gospel composer, wrote a song. Uhh, "Precious Lord take my hand, lead me on let me stand. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light.
[00:07:46]
Precious Lord, take my hand and lead me on". And of course, the composer was Mr. Thomas Darsey [Dorsey], and uh, he has written, he is the only composer, I would imagine, who is in both the Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Afro-American Hall of Fame.
[00:08:08]
He wrote a song entitled "Peace in the Valley". Which Red Foley and some other, uh, musicians have recorded. This is Thomas Darsey. [Dorsey]
[00:08:24]
And after him, he composed in the 1920s and 30s. He's still alive and still records. In the 1930s, he started a gospel singers convention, where every year they would come, and I'm getting a witness here, and choir members would spruce up their act and so forth.
[00:08:47]
Working with him was a very, um, strong singer by the name of Ms. Sally Martin.