Precious Lord, take my hand

with MAITLAND

I. Text

This hymn was born out of terrible tragedy in the life of gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey (1899–1993). In an interview for the album Precious Lord: Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (Columbia Records, 1973), he described the circumstances of the song’s composition:

I went out to go to St. Louis one morning, to work in a revival. I left my wife asleep in bed, got in the car, and I went along. She was going to become a mother, and I was anticipating a great happiness and great joy on my return. But I got to St. Louis, and about the second night, in the meeting, a telegram boy came and brought me a telegram. I opened it, and it read, “Your wife just died. Come home.” I couldn’t finish the meeting. Finally, I got home to Chicago the next morning, and it was so, I found it all true, they never moved the body. And that chilled me, killed me off; I wanted to go back to blues. But after putting my wife away, and the baby in the same casket, I went to the old Poro College, in the music room there, Mr. [Theodore] Frye and I, just browsing over the keys, and seemingly, the words like drops of water from the crevice of a rock above seemed to drop in line. With me on the piano, “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand; I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, and lead me home.”

Now, God has blessed. I have another family: I have a wife, a son, a daughter, and a grandson about seven, eight years old. And the Lord has lead me, and he will lead you. And I hope, some way, somehow, if you don’t sing “Precious Lord, take my hand,” you will learn to sing it, and sing it with a feeling and a fervor.

Dorsey’s wife, Nettie Harper, died on 26 August 1932. Dorsey had started his career as a blues musician (stage name Georgia Tom), but turned his attention to gospel music in the 1920s, thus the reference to returning to the blues. The song was not copyrighted until 1938, when it was published as sheet music by Thomas Dorsey’s own company (Fig. 1), with three stanzas. The original setting was for solo voice and piano/organ.

The following year, it was adopted into the songbook Radio and Revival Special (1939), edited by R.E. Winsett. Its first appearance in a denominational hymnal was in the Church Hymnal (1951) of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN).

When Dorsey recorded the song for his album The Maestro Sings (1980), he used two additional stanzas, “Precious Lord, I love your name,” and “Precious Lord, I humbly bow.” These additional words are not well known and are not frequently sung, but the first of those can be found in hymnals such as the African American Heritage Hymnal (Chicago: GIA, 2001).

II. Recordings

“Precious Lord” was first recorded by the Heavenly Gospel Singers (Roosevelt Fenoy, Fred Whitmore, Henderson Massey, and Jimmy Bryant) on 16 February 1937 in Charlotte, North Carolina, for Bluebird (B6846). This was reissued by Document Records on Heavenly Gospel Singers, Volume 2 (DOCD 5453, 1997). Following closely thereafter, it was recorded by Charles Beck, The Singing Evangelist, on 8 May 1937 in New York City for Decca Records (7320). The song proved to be very popular; it was recorded 16 times between 1937 and 1942.

Dorsey himself operated mostly as a composer, choir director, accompanist, and talent developer, so recordings of him performing his song are uncommon, especially in the early years of his career. One of the earliest notable recordings was made by Mahalia Jackson, accompanied by Dorsey, recorded in New York City on 27 March 1956, and released on the Columbia Records album Bless This House (CL-899). In 1973, Dorsey recorded another version, with him providing a spoken introduction and playing piano behind Marion Williams, released on Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey (Columbia KG 32151). In 1980, Dorsey played and sang “Precious Lord” on The Maestro Sings (Sound of Gospel SOG 3D110), accompanied by Richard Gordon on organ, with a spoken prologue and epilogue by Clayton L. Hannah. The following year, at the 48th National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, 1–7 August 1981, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Houston, Texas, Dorsey performed the song for the documentary Say Amen, Somebody, which was then released in audio and video formats in 1982 and 1983.

III. Tune

The music to Thomas A. Dorsey’s hymn is an adaptation of a much older tune known as MAITLAND, which was closely associated with the text “Must Jesus bear the cross alone.”

The tune first appeared twice in 1855. One of these was Henry Ward Beecher’s influential Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes (NY: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1855 | Fig. 2). In this printing, the tune was called CROSS AND CROWN, credited as “Western Melody,” and set to “Must Jesus bear the cross alone,” text credited to George N. Allen.

That same year, the tune also appeared in Church Music (Rochester: E. Darrow & Brother, 1855 | Fig. 3), edited by Leonard W. Bacon for St. Peter’s Church, Rochester, NY. Here, the tune was called CROSS AND CROWN, paired with “Must Jesus bear the cross alone”; no other identifying information is on the page.

The name MAITLAND was assigned and popularized via The Sabbath Hymn and Tune Book (NY: Mason Brothers, 1859 | Fig. 4), edited by Lowell Mason and others. In the tune index, this was credited only as “American tune.”

In 1873, George Allen claimed authorship of MAITLAND, and his account was printed in the 26 August 1875 issue of the New York Observer:

The tune to which you refer—“Maitland”— was composed by me and introduced here in Oberlin about the year 1850. In my scrap-book it bears the name “Cross and Crown.” The words, “Must Jesus bear,” &c., were inserted by me in a small Pocket Hymn-Book, which I was engaged in compiling at the time; and hence the connection of the hymn with the tune. Three of the four verses which I send (copied from my scrap-book) were derived substantially from an old (Methodist) hymn-book which came under my observation at the time, and which I have not since met with. The hymn commenced with the words “Must Jesus bear the cross alone, And all the world go free?” There were a large number of verses. I introduced an additional stanza of my own (the second), of no particular merit, unless it may be supposed to connect more closely and naturally the verses somewhat detached in the original version.[1]

The hymn book mentioned here by Allen, the one he edited, was The Oberlin Social and Sabbath School Hymn Book (Oberlin: James M. Fitch, 1844). This is sometimes erroneously reported as the earliest source for the tune MAITLAND, but Allen’s collection did not contain music. How Allen’s tune made its way to Beecher’s attention or Bacon’s is unclear. The additional stanza claimed by Allen was identified in the newspaper as the one beginning “While here on earth, ’mid griefs and cares.” This also was not included in the Oberlin collection. In hymnals, a variation of this stanza has sometimes been given as “Disowned on earth ’mid griefs and cares,” printed as early as Sacred Songs for Social Worship (Oberlin: E.J. Goodrich, 1875).

by CHRIS FENNER
with BRETT NELSON
for Hymnology Archive
30 January 2019
rev. 8 January 2024

Footnotes:

1. “Notes & Queries,” New York Observer (26 August 1875), p. 1: PNG; see also Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833–1883 (Oberlin: E.J. Goodrich, 1883), pp. 199–200: Archive.org

Related Resources:

Thomas A. Dorsey, The Precious Lord Story and Gospel Songs (1970s): WorldCat

Thomas A. Dorsey, “The birth of ‘Precious Lord,'” Guideposts, October 1987, pp. 81–82.

Lindsay Terry, “A rush act on the printer,” Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), pp. 47–48.

Carlton Young, “Precious Lord, take my hand,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), p. 561.

Melva W. Costen, “Precious Lord, take my hand,” The Hymn, vol. 45, no. 2 (Apr. 1994), p. 39: HathiTrust

Robert M.W. Dixon, et al., Blues & Gospel Records 1890–1943, 4th ed. (Oxford: University Press, 1997).

Bert Polman, “Precious Lord, take my hand,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), pp. 662–663.

Paul Westermeyer, “Precious Lord, take my hand,” Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), pp. 637–639.

Carl P. Daw Jr. “Precious Lord, take my hand,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 795–796.

“Precious Lord, take my hand,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/precious_lord_take_my_hand