| 15radio Character: 7 Questions and Issues Concerning a Music Crisis | |
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15 radio/Crisis or Christ Consciousness
A crisis will break out in one of the following areas:
In 1925 Thomas Dorsey married Nettie Harper. A year later, he experienced a nervous breakdown and was unable to work for two years. That event, combined with the sudden death of a young neighbor, prompted Dorsey to commit himself more fully to God and Christian music. To mark his new life, he wrote his first gospel song, "If You See My Savior, Tell Him That You Saw Me." Western Union messenger came up to the stage and gave Dorsey an urgent telegram. "I ripped open the envelope," he recounted later, "and pasted on the yellow sheet were the words: 'Your wife just died.'" Racing home, he learned that Nettie had given birth to a boy. "I swung between grief and joy," he recalled. "Yet that night, the baby died. I buried Nettie and our little boy together in the same casket." He managed to get through the funeral visitation and service. But when it was all over, he withdrew from family, friends, and even his beloved music. "I felt that God had done me an injustice. I didn't want to serve him anymore or write gospel songs. I just wanted to go back to that jazz world I once knew so well," he said. In the midst of despair, a friend visited Dorsey and arranged for him to be left alone in a music room with a piano. "It was quiet; the late evening sun crept through the curtained windows," Dorsey recalled. For the first time in many days, he sat at a piano using his fingers to browse the keys. Soon, the young artist experienced a personal revival: "I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, one I'd never heard or played before, and words [for "Precious Lord"] came into my head—they just seemed to fall into place." Story Behind the Song Thomas A. Dorsey's "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."
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There are rumors circulating in the music community that the day Douglas Miller wrote "My Soul Has Been Anchored in the Lord." there were men standing outside his hotel with firearms in an attempt to assassinate him due to financial record label disputes
Sara Jordan Powell, who claims that Ray Charles stole her version of "America the Beautiful."
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