Throughout his life, Thomas Dorsey would create music that spoke to his despair, but also testified to the good news of the gospel carrying him through.

Dorsey had begun to spread this message of the transformative power of gospel through the first modern gospel choir at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which he co-created in Chicago in 1931.

Influenced by annual gatherings, like the National Baptist Convention, and building on the choir's popularity, Dorsey co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1933.

In short order, the gospel choir would become one of the most powerful and most lasting elements in the evolving sound of the gospel tradition.

The National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses being formed in Chicago in 1933, sort of cemented Chicago as the gospel mecca.

It really networked Black church choirs and connected his own songs with these choirs.

He was strongly invested in establishing the pedagogy of gospel.

He had very strong ideas about how it was taught the right way and the right way to do things.

They're being taught the best singing techniques, they're being taught how to organize and run a choir.

It became almost impossible to find a major church that didn't have a gospel choir.

There was nowhere else in the world where you could learn from the people who really created it, other than the Dorsey Convention.

They're also selling an awful lot of Dorsey music, and for a time they were even called Dorseys.