Precious Lord, take my hand

Precious Lord, take my hand. Thomas A. Dorsey* (1899-1993). Written in Chicago in August 1932, under distressing circumstances: Dorsey’s wife Nettie died in childbirth, and her child died soon afterwards. Dorsey, who was at a revival meeting when he heard the news of his wife’s death, was distraught. He was consoled by a friend, Theodore Frye, who took Dorsey to a local music college where Dorsey idly began playing on the piano what he remembered of an old tune. This was a pentatonic Sunday-school tune, MAITLAND, by George Nelson Allen (1812-1877), composed for ‘Must Jesus bear the cross alone’ in the Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book (1844-49), a book that did not include tunes...