Walter Hawkins is Dead at 61

Grammy-winning gospel singer, composer and pastor, Walter Hawkins died Sunday at his home in Ripon, California after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61.

Hawkins was born in Oakland and began singing in gospel choirs as a teenager, along with his brothers. In 1967, as a member of the Edwin Hawkins Singers, he recorded “Oh Happy Day,” which would become one of the first gospel-leaning songs to cross over to the mainstream, winning a Grammy and being named one of the RIAA’s Songs of the Century.