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. He was consecrated to the bishopric in 2000.
Biography
The 7th of 8 children born to the late Dan Lee and Mamie Vivian Hawkins, Walter Lee Hawkins was born on May 18, 1949, in Oakland, California. Hawkins was the brother of Edwin Hawkins (d. 2018), Marava Ladale Hawkins (d. 1988), Carol Lee Hawkins (d. 2020), Freddie Joyce Hawkins, Jervis Ersell Hawkins (d. 1952), Daniel Lee Hawkins (Marcia) and Lynette Gail Hawkins-Stephens (Reginald). Bishop 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]
Walter Hawkins and his groups were frequent musical collaborators, and recorded with Van Morrison, Diahann Carroll, Sylvester, and Jeffrey Osborne, among many others.[citation needed]
One of those who regularly attended the Love Center church was Sylvester, who had been introduced to it in the early 1980s by Jeanie Tracy.
Personal life
Bishop Hawkins was married to Tramaine Hawkins from 1971 until their divorce in 1994. They had two children, a son Walter Lee “Jamie” Hawkins, Jr., who is married to Myiia “Sunny” Davis-Hawkins, and a daughter Trystan Lynette Hawkins. Bishop Hawkins also had a granddaughter, Jahve Neru Deana Hawkins, and a grandson, Jamie Daniel Hawkins.
Death
On July 11, 2010, Walter Hawkins died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in his house in Ripon, California