Chords for Documentary clip on Thomas Dorsey

Thomas Dorsey was basically a blues singer.
He called himself Georgia Tom and for most of the 1920s he made quite a bit of money
By singing off-color blues then suddenly he experienced as many people do
sort of an epiphany a revelation
He lost a lot of money suddenly
He took that as some kind of sign and he began to turn his considerable songwriting talents to [Gb] gospel music _ _ _ _ _ _
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Yeah
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_ We affectionately referred to him as the godfather of gospel because he sophisticated the call-and-response
Technique which came by the oral tradition from West Africa and he introduced the so-called jazz
_ Cadences and rhythms of popular music into the gospel idiom _
What he did when he [Ab] created the form we know as gospel
He put the music of faith into the common idiom of the people _
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I
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_ _ _ It was in the colloquial expression with which people were familiar and it was born in a period of deep
economic depression in America when
Lester Grange of the Urban League said that black America almost had a nervous breakdown things were so bad in Norfolk, Virginia in
1928 29 80% of the population were on relief and
_ _ Black men were standing on corners trying to sell their services for a dollar a day
White matrons fired their maids and sent them home and they had to wring their hands over dishwater singing Amazing Grace
So it was really the essence of gospel music
That kept the frail [Gb] hopes of the black community [Gbm] alive in our [E] churches
_ _ _ [Bm] Let's go _ _
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_ _ [Am] _ [D] _ Since I [Bm] came
_ _ _ _ [C] Sometimes [A] stumbling
_ _ _ _ [Abm] _ Sometimes [Gbm] falling
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Not only did he write [A] great songs
But he also [E] tended to figure out new ways to market and merchandise the songs
He was the first one for [Eb] example come up with the idea of really
Pushing and selling and merchandising gospel songs on sheet music
He was the first person to go out and really push his songs
the way a modern popular song plugger would do he told me several stories of
I'm at real meanness by ministers
One was he would publish his songs on little song sheets and he would go to churches and he'd ask for an opportunity
To sing one of them or one of his songsters or demonstrators as they were called
Would sing them and then he could sell his song sheets or tell people to come to his store
He said he went to one church and the minister said I want you to sit on the front row and I will give you
A chance to sing one of your songs
Dorsey said that the man looked at him then
_ Dismissed to the congregation without letting him sing a song he'd lost a Sunday morning the other times
They would say take that old jazz and music out of here and don't blues up our things
So you see Dorsey had to organize a gospel choir convention so that he could put this program on himself
He just had a little white bag in the drawer and he just dropped the dimes in there
So I could see he wasn't keeping up with nothing.
I said you got something yet, but you just don't know what to do
Is it but I addressed you and I took over
And he lives today _ _
_ So it was mine to travel around and wherever I'd go I'd carry the music sing the song
Sell the music after the service was over and that's the way mr.
Dorsey's business would be
Sally was a great singer, but her business acumen was greater than her singing
But the young woman who was born in 1911 in New Orleans, Louisiana
Mahalia Jackson came to Chicago
When she was 16 years old, and even though she'd performed with the Johnson brothers.
She eventually became Dorsey's
Demonstrator and and they traveled together for 14 years
Dorsey would write the songs and teach them to Mahalia
They travel all over the United States singing these songs and of course eventually Mahalia became
the woman responsible for
introducing gospel to the wider world
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[Ebm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ Let [Db] me walk [Ab] in your
_ _ I'm telling
telling this world
[G] God would have seen you one day I found
And [Eb] I'm spreading
your gospel
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_ _ [Cm] _ [Eb] Faithful
Today [G] _
let me [Ab] walk in _ _ _
I'm telling
telling
_ [Bbm] Lord will save you
_ _ [Fm] _ And [Eb] I'm ready
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