“Someday, Somewhere”

This chapter examines the roles played by Thomas A. Dorsey, Mahalia Jackson, Sallie Martin, Theodore R. Frye, and Magnolia Lewis Butts in the development of gospel music in Chicago. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Dorsey, Jackson, Martin, Frye, and Butts formed an informal nexus that spread the new gospel songs and gospel music style throughout Chicago and, ultimately, across the country. Dorsey was a versatile pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader who helped incorporate jazz and blues styles into gospel. He met Jackson around 1928 and offered her to demonstrate his songs. Martin, another Dorsey acquaintance, helped the struggling songwriter reap the financial and adulatory benefits of gospel music. This chapter provides a background on Dorsey, Jackson, Martin, Frye, and Butts and how they got involved in gospel music in Chicago. It also discusses the 1930 National Baptist Convention, the tipping point for Dorsey's gospel songwriting career as well as the commencement of a gradual acceptance of gospel music by African American churches.