Oh happy day

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Oh Happy Day (Engl. For oh happy day ) is one of the Edwin Hawkins Singers published in 1969 Gospel -Song, the international hit parade reached and the gospel music opened up to a wider audience.

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Oh happy day
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 06/30/1969 (19 weeks)
  AT 2 07/15/1969 (16 weeks)
  CH 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 06/03/1969 (15 weeks)
  UK 2 05/27/1969 (13 weeks)
  US 22nd 05/24/1969 (6 weeks)

History of origin

Lyrically, gospel music is based on content from the Old and New Testaments . This also applies to the text originally written by the English pastor Philipp Doddridge under the title Oh Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice . This gospel song was published posthumously in 1755 by his friend Job Orton in a collection of 370 hymns. Who wrote the music is controversial. Its origin is said to go back to a version composed by Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen in 1704 , which was contained in his Freylinghausen hymnbook . The refrain is attributed to Edward Francis Rimbault (born June 13, 1816 in Soho / London , † September 26, 1876 in London), who picked up the song in 1854.

Version of the Edwin Hawkins Singers

The 46 people (between the ages of 17 and 25 years) gospel choir Northern California State Choir was founded in May 1967 by Edwin Hawkins and Betty Watson and needed money for a trip to the "Annual Youth Congress of the Churches of God in Christ " (annual youth church convention) in June 1968 in Washington, DC The choir asked Century Record Productions to make a recording of their choir chants. With the savings of 1,800 dollars, they financed the recording of the gospel LP Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord in the Ephesian Church of Christ in Berkeley with a circulation of 500. With an outdated Ampex two-track tape (eight-track recorders were modern), 8 hymns were recorded in May 1968 with only piano, bass and drums, lead singer Dorothy Combs Morrison sings with an empathic throaty alto voice. Among them was the long-time public domain title Oh Happy Day .

Publication and Success

Edwin Hawkins Singers - Oh Happy Day

LaMont Bench was owned by the small record company Pavilion Records in Oakland ; she received permission to press 1,000 more copies for commercial sale. 600 copies of this were sold. One of the copies came into the hands of radio DJ Abe "Voco" Keshishian at KSAN (FM) in San Francisco in February 1969 . The station was known as an underground station, but "Kesh" decided to give Oh Happy Day an intense airplay . The station KOIT in San Francisco added the song to its playlist . Neil Bogart of Buddah Records heard the record on the radio and signed a distribution deal with Pavilion Records . With an advance of $ 80,000, the gospel choir was marketed by Buddah Records and renamed Edwin Hawkins Singers . Oh Happy Day was previously released as a single from the LP and released in April 1969 as Oh Happy Day / Jesus, Lover of My Soul (Pavilion 20001). The single received a Top20 recommendation in the April 19, 1969 Billboard issue . As a massive crossover hit, it reached both the US Rhythm & Blues (rank 2) and the US pop hit parade (rank 4) and sold a million copies within just two weeks of its release. After publication in Great Britain on May 18, 1969, it reached number 2 on the charts there. She was awarded the gold record by the RIAA on June 3, 1969, making it the first certified single in the gospel sector. A total of 7 million records were sold worldwide and 4 Grammy Awards were given in the USA . In Germany and Switzerland it even reached number 1 in the national charts. Oh Happy Day made the list of Songs of the Century .

Cover versions and statistics

The LP Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord reached number 5 on the Rhythm & Blues LP charts on June 14, 1969. The song was a one-hit wonder and paved the way for gospel music to be commercialized. There are at least 42 cover versions in total . Elvis Presley recorded it on August 7, 1970, The Four Seasons on their LP Half & Half (May 1970). The German text is from Ernst Carl Magaret. Oh Happy Day appears in the movie Sister Act 2 (US premiere: December 10, 1993) with singer Lauryn Hill ; in one of the last scenes a gospel choir sings the song at a school performance. The group Adam und die Micky’s , which specializes in humorous parodies, published a Hessian version called “Oh häppy day, Papa” in the early 1970s.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
  2. ↑ Steve Sullivan: Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings , Volume 2. 2013, p. 409.
  3. ^ 'Oh Happy Day' Changed Edwin Hawkins' Life , San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 2009.
  4. ↑ Emmelt George Price, Encyclopedia of African American Music , Volume 3, 2011, p 381st
  5. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, pp. 284 f.
  6. ↑ 1969 - Gospel Makes Great Industry Strides , Billboard Magazine, Aug. 16, 1969, p. 34.
  7. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 254.
  8. ↑ Robert Dimery, 1001 Songs: You Must Hear Before You Die , 2011, no page number
  9. ^ Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One Hit Wonders , 1988, pp. 254 f.
  10. ↑ Oh Happy Day ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Enominepatris @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / enominepatris.com
  11. ↑ Oh Happy Day from Sister Act 2 on Youtube