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Pragmatic Obots Unite

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Sunday Open Thread: Celebrating Walter Hawkins

May 16, 2021 by Miranda 202 Comments

Good Morning POU! Today we celebrate the legendary gospel songwriter and singer Walter Hawkins.

Walter Lee Hawkins (May 18, 1949 – July 11, 2010) was an American gospel music singer and pastor. He was consecrated to the bishopric in 2000.

Walter Hawkins on Amazon Music

The 7th of 8 children born to the late Dan Lee and Mamie Vivian Hawkins, Walter Lee Hawkins was born on May 18, 1949 in Oakland, California. Hawkins was the brother of Edwin Hawkins (d. 2018) , Marava Ladale Hawkins (d. 1988), Carol Lee Hawkins (d. 2020), Feddie Joyce Hawkins, Jervis Ersell Hawkins (d. 1952), Daniel Lee Hawkins (Marcia) and Lynette Gail Hawkins-Stephens (Reginald). Bishop Hawkins was married to Tramaine Hawkins from 1971 until their divorce in 1994. They had two children, a son Walter Lee “Jamie” Hawkins, Jr., who is married to Myiia “Sunny” Davis-Hawkins, and a daughter Trystan Lynette Hawkins. Bishop Hawkins also had a granddaughter, Jahve Neru Deana Hawkins, and a grandson, Jamie Daniel Hawkins.

Be Grateful

Bishop Hawkins started his career in one of his brother’s chorales, the Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ. The choir recorded an album in 1968 as a local fundraiser. When a song from that album, “Oh Happy Day”, became a crossover hit, Buddah Records purchased the master and released it as “the Edwin Hawkins Singers”. This led to him accompanying his brother Edwin to establish the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

Gon Up Younder

Walter Hawkins left the Edwin Hawkins Singers in the early 1970s to establish the Love Center Church in Oakland, California. He and his Love Center Choir had considerable success with their Love Alive series of recordings, which sold well over a million copies from the 1970s through the 1990s. Love Alive IV, released in 1990, was No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Album charts, where it stayed for 33 weeks. In all, Walter Hawkins produced and/or collaborated on 116 hit songs which were listed on the Billboard Gospel Music charts.

Marvelous

Walter Hawkins and his groups were frequent musical collaborators, and recorded with Van Morrison, Diahann Carroll, Sylvester, and Jeffrey Osborne, among many others.

Walter and Edwin Hawkins perform at the White House

On July 11, 2010, Walter Hawkins died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in his house in Ripon, California.

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