Issue No. 22 of Johnny Be Good features one of 45 songs from the book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John Pearson's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes). Each blog will spotlight a song from the book and a guest blogger’s color commentary. Click here to subscribe. Each issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting will highlight the latest blog.
“The First Pure Gospel Recording to Reach Billboard’s Secular Charts”
Today’s guest blogger: Paul Palmer
Song: #22 of 45
Title: "Oh Happy Day"
Musicians: The Edwin Hawkins Singers
Released: April 1969
Editor’s Note: When this blog series concludes after Song #45, we’ll be announcing several “Best” awards (Best Photo, Best Humor, etc.) to be presented to our guest bloggers. Paul Palmer, today’s guest blogger, has already been nominated for “Best Research” for his deep-and-wide look into “Oh Happy Day.” (Well done, Paul! Thank you!)
I APPRECIATED THIS:
Marc Myers writes a fascinating chapter about the Edwin Hawkins Singers and “Oh Happy Day.” I love his interviews with Edwin Hawkins (songwriter and pianist) and Dorothy Morrison (the lead singer).
But before this song debuted in 1969, we should go back to the early 1700s, to another song. Rev. Philip Doddridge (1702-1751) pastored a poor parish in Northampton, England. He wrote more than 400 hymns to accompany his sermons—to help his congregation remember what he preached about. One of his hymns, “O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice” is featured in 1,683 hymnals (imagine!), and is still sung today. Read the five verses here. Here’s the refrain:
Happy day, happy day,
When Jesus washed my sins away!
He taught me how to watch and pray,
And live rejoicing every day;
Happy day, happy day,
When Jesus washed my sins away!
And imagine this: the original hymn title was “Rejoicing in our Covenant. Engagement with God.” (That would never get past the record producers today!) What did this title mean to Doddridge? According to one historian, as he "was dying of tuberculosis at the age of forty-nine, his wife is said to have seen his lips moving and asked if he needed anything. 'No,' he responded, 'I am only renewing my covenant engagements with God.'" Doddridge was also acquainted with John Wesley and George Whitefield, and Queen Victoria chose this hymn to be sung at the confirmation of one of her daughters.
So now…fast forward to the 1960s. Edwin Hawkins (1943-2018) grew up in Oakland, Calif., and he and his family were members at the Good Samaritan Church of God in Christ. In 1967, when he was 23, he organized a youth choir to perform at a national Pentecostal church conference. The newly formed National California State Youth Choir (40 singers from nearby churches) finished in second place—and that inspired Hawkins and the new choir to continuing rehearsing back home. That's when they recorded "Oh Happy Day."
When the song caught on locally in San Francisco, Hawkins started getting calls from record companies across the country. A gospel music store owner in Berkeley suggested he sign with Buddah Records in New York. Hawkins tells Marc Myers that “the church thought what we were doing was sacrilegious and insisted we remove the choir’s name from the record. So Buddah renamed the choir the Edwin Hawkins Singers.” The 45 was released by Pavilion Records and distributed by Buddah Records.
According to the website, Second Hand Songs, “Oh Happy Day” has been covered almost 150 times. It’s also been featured in movies: Sister Act 2, Secretariat: Heart of a Champion, and several Spike Lee films. It’s been performed by Ray Charles, Glen Campbell, Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples, and many others.
Read more in Marc Myers’ WSJ article, “When He Washed My Sins Away” (Nov. 22, 2012). The Edwin Hawkins Singers’ single of “Oh Happy Day” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
Listen to “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers.
MY FAVORITE NOTES & QUOTES:
The original lyrics included the line, “He taught me how to watch and pray.” But after the tragic assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, Hawkins changed the line to “He taught me how to watch, fight and pray.”
The song has been covered almost 150 times. Here are some of my favorites:
• Gabriel Henrique with The Pentecostals of Katy, Texas
• Britain's Got Talent 2016 Final: “I Gotta Feeling/Oh Happy Day” (The 100 Voices Of Gospel)
• Lillie Knauls on Huckabee (March 18, 2023)
• Featured in the movie, Secretariat: Heart of a Champion
• André Rieu: "Oh Happy Day" (Featuring the Harlem Gospel Choir & Soweto Gospel Choir)
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THIS SONG?
I was a freshman at Oral Roberts University in 1969 and I remember hearing this song while standing in line at the cafeteria! Now, after writing this blog, I can’t get the tune out of my head! But I love it!
JOHNNY BE...GOOD, BETTER, OR BEST?
• GOOD: While researching this blog, I spoke to Clifton Taulbert, a classmate at ORU in 1969. (He’s the author of several books including Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored.) We talked about the impact of “Oh Happy Day” and he recalled the “joyful” response from so many who heard and sang the song—and how it expressed the happiness of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
• BETTER: The song “became the first pure gospel recording to reach Billboard’s secular charts.” According to Marc Myers, “Immediately following the success of ‘Oh Happy Day,’ pop artists began releasing church-flavored singles, including Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (1970)” and others.
I also called a friend, Neal Joseph, who served for 20 years as a senior executive in the Christian music industry in Nashville, including as a divisional president at Warner Bros. Records. During that time he produced over 100 Christian albums—including a dozen Dove Award-winning projects—and is a five-time Grammy Award winning producer. He now serves as the managing partner of Mission:Leadership.
We had a great conversation about “Oh Happy Day” and Neal agreed that this early song also opened the door for many gospel singers, such as Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant, to move into pop music as well.
I think you can draw a straight line from "Oh Happy Day" in 1969, to the Gospel medleys on the Grammys, to American Idol in 2024, when Roman Collins and CeCe Winans sang "Goodness of God" in the grand finale.
• BEST: I recently visited a long-time friend, Miss Lillie Knauls, now 85, who sang with the Edwin Hawkins Singers when “Oh Happy Day” was released in 1969. A staple in the Gaither Homecoming series, she’s still singing! Last year, she sang “Oh Happy Day” on the Huckabee TV program. And get this! Miss Lillie told me that when they sang on American Bandstand on Sept. 5, 1969, Dick Clark said there would be no dancing during the song because "Oh Happy Day" was a Gospel song!
Miss Lillie Knauls (see circled singer on the left) sang with the Edwin Hawkins Singers when “Oh Happy Day” was released in 1969 and the song “became the first pure gospel recording to reach Billboard’s secular charts.” [Photo used by permission. Visit Miss Lillie Knauls’ website here.]
Paul Palmer and his wife, Cheryl, are pictured here in 2019 with Miss Lillie Knauls who was an original member of the Edwin Hawkins Singers when the choir recorded “Oh Happy Day” in 1969.
THIS ISSUE'S COMMENTARY BY Paul Palmer
PAUL PALMER has enjoyed a wide variety of music throughout his career. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education from ORU and specialized on the tuba in both high school and college. His goal was to become a high school band teacher.
Along his "long and winding road," he's collected thousands of friends (he never forgets a name). Paul's career has taken him to World Vision, IBM, Crosswalk.com, Christianity.com (Starwire, Inc.), and other companies. As a development team member at World Vision, Palmer arranged vision trips for donors to visit India, Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya, and Senegal.
Paul was also the guest blogger for Song #4, “Please Mr. Postman.”
NEXT UP!
Song #23 of 45, “Suspicious Minds,” by Elvis Presley, with commentary by Bill Butterworth.
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It all started in 2023, when John Pearson read and reviewed a "fun" book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes).
If you'd enjoy being one of 45 guest bloggers, along with John Ashmen, Dick Nelson, Suzy West, Dave Barton, Patsy Barton, Paul Palmer, Bill Butterworth, Jim West, Melinda Schmidt, Jason Pearson, Gary Rea, Callista Dawson, John Walling, Ed Barrett, Larry Beatty, Skye Matlock, and others, read more here and contact John Pearson. Click here to subscribe to this blog and enjoy the toe-tapping musicians in each weekly blog post—reminding you of these iconic songs of yesteryear.