Hawkins performed on stage in the East Room of the White House, where he was joined on stage by his brother Edwin, Tuesday, June 17, 2008, in honor of Black Music Month.
Walter Lee Hawkins (May 18, 1949 – July 11, 2010) was an American gospel singer, songwriter, composer, and pastor. An influential figure in urban contemporary gospel music, his career spanned more than four decades. Hawkins won one Grammy from a sum of eight nominations.
Biography
Walter Lee Hawkins was born on May 18, 1949 in Oakland, California to Dan Lee Hawkins and Mamie Vivian Hawkins (née Matthews). Hawkins was the brother of gospel musician Edwin Hawkins (1943–2018), with whom he first began recording music as a fundraising effort for the Church of God in Christ.
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.
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.[citation needed]
