http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-pilg07.html
Dorsey's music likely destroyed
More than memories were lost in the blaze that destroyed Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church -- the birthplace of gospel music.
During his four-year tenure as Pilgrim's pastor, the Rev. Hycel B. Taylor, who left the pastorate about seven months ago, worked with students from the Illinois Institute of Technology to catalog and store sheet music belonging to Thomas A. Dorsey, the church's longtime musical director better known as "the godfather of gospel music," he said.
"I had boxed all his music to preserve it," Taylor said Friday, adding that he believes the music was in the church at the time of the fire.
"That's a great loss."
Before his death in 1993 at the age of 93, Dorsey wrote more than 400 gospel songs. His most famous, penned in 1932 after the death of his wife and infant son, is gospel music's unofficial anthem: "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."
"Through the storm, through the night/Lead me on to the light/Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home. . . ."
Cathleen Falsani
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