A review on the Edwin Hawkins Singers' **Oh Happy Day** (Buddha
Records, sublabel Kama Sutra), by Robert Longman. Used with permission
of the editors of (the late) Upstart Music Magazine. 1990.

The current era is usually thought of as the heyday of Christian
Contemporary music. Never you mind that all other eras had their
Christian megahits : Gordon McRae and Jo Stafford with 'Whispering
Hope', Vaughn Monroe with 'Riders In the Sky', Ro Clooney with 'This
Ole House', Tennessee Ernie Ford, Al Hibbler, Sonny Til and the
Orioles, Hank Snow, Mahalia Jackson, Elvis. It's just that it wasn't
6% of all record sales back then, like it is in 1990. But the biggest of them all, and the most explicit of
them all, came like a bolt out of the blue to rise to #4 on the
Billboard pop charts in 1969. Yes, 21 years ago, and the bolt was
sent from *beyond* the blue. It was 'Oh Happy Day'. There was an
album to go with that song, but few people remember that.

The album leads off with a middling version of the blah song "Let Us Go
Into the House Of the Lord", a mediocre invitatory that gives no hint
as to what is to come.

The next track, "Jesus, Lover Of My Soul", makes up for that. Edwin
Hawkins feeds us an early version of what would become a long line of
his trademark rearrangements/rewrites of older hymns. It's not that
gospel choir music had never added electric instruments or rock
drum/cymbal sets to its sound before. But that handful of feeble
efforts were blatantly imitative of soul music, thus not being true to
gospel. Here, Hawkins uses drums, bongos, cymbals and electric bass in
a very simple and basic manner that accentuates the musical strengths
that are already there in gospel choir music. The piano rumbles, the
bass adds power to it; the choir works in strong rhythm, the drums add
definition to it; the voices fill in between the lead, and the cymbals
fill around the lead. Sure, when the baritones take the lead you can
tell that they aren't at that time a professional group. But who
cares ? The female and tenor voices are dynamic, the rhythm section
really rattles, and the piano + bass have that heavy-on-the-deep-notes
rumble that just rolls right through you.

"To My Father's House" uses these same elements at a faster pace, and
adds a fine solo by Elaine Kelly which is (unfortunately) abysmally
miked. This is followed by a solo soul-o by Marg Branch on "I'm Going
Through" that brings out the gospel roots of the '60s pop slow-soul
styles often found on Aretha or Gladys albums. As with the whole
album, the miking here would have killed lesser material. [[Digital
remix experts should take a crack at bringing Branch's voice forward
next time it's put to CD.]]

This is then followed by the indescribable musical miracle, that format-
defying, miking-defying, racism-defying, secularism-defying,
maldistribution-defying, soul-slaying blowout of a record that still
pumps the heart and stomps the feet even after 21 years -- "Oh Happy
Day". [[RHL : For more on that song, see the next TFIPM note.]]

The next song, "I Heard the Voice of Jesus", is also epochal, in that
it is the first recorded feature (as part of a trio) for gospel and
dance-music superstar Tramaine Hawkins, then just a teenager. Turley
Richards took this song (barely) to the pop charts in 1970, but this
version is the first and the best, marred only by its church-basement
production values. It goes from soft and calming to outburst and back
effortlessly, making the meaning of the lyrics (which are unusually
deep with meaning, for a Hawkins rework job) take on new life. By now,
the rhythm section work sound almost too familiar -- but that actually
helps on this song.

Song seven is a serviceable Betty Watson solo of "Early In The
Morning", done in a typical gospel jump style. The closer on the
album is "Joy Joy", a slow song with two soloists and very little
choir. Tramaine here shows what would become her own signature style
for slow songs, and she had the 'stuff' even then.

Thus, there's a lot more than "Oh Happy Day" to the album; there's the
sound of a pack of Bay Area church singers who had no idea that they
were taking gospel music's next step, led by an Edwin Hawkins who knew
exactly what he was doing.