“I’ve been through so many storms in my life,” Lynette Hawkins Stephens wails in robust contralto tones at August’s Art & Soul Oakland festival. The 40-voice Love Center Choir answers her with “He’s brought me through,” each syllable enunciated with the precision Bishop Walter Hawkins’ hand movements dictate.
“The same thing He did for me,” she continues over the rhythm section’s loping waltz underpinning, the choir adding, “He’ll
do for you.”
“I love to call His name,” she sings reverently as “Special Gift,” a 1988 gospel music hit penned by Walter, moves into a vamp after its third chorus.
“Jesus,” Walter cries out in a high, ringing tenor, his pitch an octave higher than hers.
“He’s my refuge,” she injects.
“Jesus,” he responds, his voice growing progressively stronger as the brother-sister call-and-response continues.
The tempo picks up for “He’ll Bring You Out” from Walter’s 1984 album Love Alive III. As choir member Karen DeVone takes the helm, Walter bounces in place, his arms waving vigorously while directing.
Some of the hundreds of fans who’ve gathered for the afternoon-long gospel
concert get up to “shout” — a highly animated style of dancing marked by rapidly shuffling
feet and flapping arms that the faithful believe is inspired by the Holy Ghost — on a carpet that has been placed for that purpose on the asphalt between the stage and the seats.
“We’ve turned downtown Oakland into a sanctuary,” Walter says at the conclusion of the song. His older brother Edwin, who programmed the performances on the outdoor festival’s gospel stage, looks on with pride from the sidelines. Earlier, the brothers had opened the concert together, backed by a 100-voice choir.” Califoirnia Daily

Forty-one years ago, Walter was a pudgy teenager singing anonymously in Edwin’s Northern California State Youth Choir. The ensemble’s only album, ‘Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord’, was a vanity affair, hastily recorded at Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley — to help cover the expenses of a trip to a Church of God in Christ youth congress in Washington, D.C. Early the next year, one of the album’s tracks — “Oh Happy Day,” Edwin’s ultra-hip arrangement of an old hymn, fueled by a Latin-tinged soul groove and featuring lead singer Dorothy Morrison repeatedly interjecting “good God” into the lyrics in a manner inspired by James Brown — began getting airplay on KSAN, the hippie era’s hugely popular San Francisco progressive rock FM station.

(Bishop Hawkins speaking at his 60th birthday celebration last year)

The song soon crossed over to AM Top 40 radio, first locally, then nationally. By the end of 1969, “Oh Happy Day,” reissued by Buddah Records in New York and credited to “The Edwin Hawkins Singers,” was a Top 10 pop hit throughout the United States, England and other parts of the world. It would sell some seven million copies, permanently alter the direction of African-American gospel music, and vastly improve the fortunes of Edwin and his siblings Carol, Feddie, Daniel, Walter and Lynette, who had grown up in relative poverty in Campbell Village, a housing project deep in West Oakland.

(Singing one of Walter Hawkins greatest contributions to music, the masterpiece known as “Changed”, stars from every genre ignite a timeless moment of amazement at Oprah’s Legends Ball. Diane Sawyer coined this moment as “one of the most transcendently spiritual moments of her entire life”)

Bishop Walter Hawkins influenced a generation of gospel music lovers and singers alike. Today, the gospel music industry lost one of its most beloved icons, the great Walter Hawkins, who lost his battle with pancreatic cancer today.The news is soaring across social network sites with fans contributing their individual memories of Walter Hawkins by posting their favorite songs in videos as well as posts wishing the family the best.

(Walter and his brother Edwin Hawkins at the ’08 Christian Music Hall of Fame Induction. At 14, Edwin landed his first paying job as a church pianist, at Mount Pilgrim Church of God in Christ in a former movie theater on San Pablo Avenue near 27th Street. “I used to catch the bus and go there,” he recalls. Walter, who is six years Edwin’s junior, began getting paid as a pianist at 10. He started at East Oakland Church of God in Christ, and then moved to Unity Baptist Church, where the pastor was a barber.“Part of my compensation was I got my hair cut for free on Saturday,” Walter remembers. “And I think probably got about $5.”)

There is no news posted from an official news source (CNN, MSNBC) yet, but calls have been placed to Love Center Church and church members have confirmed that Bishop Hawkins passed this life. We expect to have an official statement soon. Until then, fans should keep the family and church family in their prayers.