Song of the Day 8/25: Edwin Hawkins Singers, “Oh Happy Day”

Back in the day, the Top 40 included all sorts of music, even gospel, as evidenced by this song hitting No. 4 in the country in 1969. Edwin Hawkins, director of the Northern California State Youth Choir at Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California, recorded it for an LP intended as a fund-raiser for travel expenses to a choir competition.

Hawkins’ arrangement is based on a hymn by 18th-century cleric Philip Doddridge, not that you’d recognize it. The hymn underwent several changes in both words and music over the centuries, and Hawkins started from a more modern version before stripping the lyrics down to just a few lines.

Hawkins recorded his LP, mostly consisting of his arrangements of popular gospel numbers, in the church on a two-track machine. But the 500 copies he ordered arrived too late to sell for travel funds (they went anyway and finished second). One of them found its way to a DJ at a Top 40 station in San Francisco, and he picked this track — Hawkins said it was “not one of our favorites” — to put into rotation (those were different times, kidz). It caught fire from there and Buddah Records signed them to a contract.

What should have been a triumphant story was marred by the disapproval of Church of God in Christ officials, who frowned on secular performances of sacred music. Local church officials circulated a petition asking secular radio stations to stop airing the song. They also refused to let Hawkins use the name of the choir, so Buddah Records renamed them the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

There are numerous covers out there, but none come close to Aretha Franklin’s 1987 version featuring Mavis Staples.

As for Hawkins, he eventually stepped out to record a solo album, “Face to Face,” in 1990. “If At First You Don’t Succeed (Try Again)” reached the lower levels of the R&B charts.