Performances on the biggest festivals, world-tours again and again, countless TV- and radio-appearances, honors like ten GRAMMY-nominations and four GRAMMY-awards, for instance for the production with the world-famous Oakland Symphony Orchestra and the legendary LP Every man wants to be free. The title climbed up the Gospel-charts, the R&B-charts and the Pop-charts in many countries world-wide.More than seven million records were sold and rewarded Edwin Hawkins with the first GRAMMY award of his career and with an evergreen, which is up to date even today.Įdwin Hawkins foto 2 What happened now seems to be like a fairy tale - or an excellent career in the music-business. It was like a revolution for Gospelmusic. The reaction in market and media was explosive! A worldwide promotion-campaign was started, which was very unusual in Gospelmusic at that time. It gained further public appeal, when an underground FM station in San Francisco began playing it. On this album, there was one outstanding song, entitled Oh happy day, that attracted attention from broadcasters and retailers alike. But something was different: this mixture of traditional Gospelmusic sounded so much like R&B - a creation, that was unknown in Gospelmusic and in R&B as well. 1967 Edwin Hawkins founded together with Betty Watson the 'Northern California State Youth Choir' and 1968 this group recorded its first album with the title Let us go into the House of the Lord.It seemed to be a very normal production, recorded live as two-track-recording with 500 copies, like many others at that time.
It was unforeseeable, that it came so far. 1968 he created with Oh happy day the greatest Gospelhit of all times and in-between the lines of Gospel, R&B and Soul he developed a new musical style, that became well-known in the Gospel-Scene as Contemporary Gospel Music and which is influencing Popmusic even today. 1957 he recorded the first album with the Hawkins. When he was seven, he took over full-time playing duties for many years for the Hawkins Family group in the end of the 40's. He started his musical career as a five year old Pianist for the Hawkins Family. But only very few people know, that Edwin Hawkins is now working since nearly 50 years on the big stages of the world. Edwin Hawkins is a musical multi-talent and since 30 years he has a reputation as ideal and reformer of gospel and R&B.