If you haven’t heard McEntire’s version of the song, here it is. McEntire surprises us with her effortless yet incredible vocals in her cover of “Oh Happy Day.” Her energetic and funky version of the song perfectly joins together country and gospel style. McEntire’s cover of “Oh Happy Day” makes you want to get up from your seat and praise God. In addition, RIAA listed the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ version as part of their list of Songs of the Century. Their rendition of the hymn won the Grammy award for Best Soul Gospel Performance in 1970. The song was popularized by the Edwin Hawkins Singers in 1969. However, in the 20th century, Edwin Hawkins rearranged the song and its melody, and this is what we know now as the tune and words to “Oh Happy Day.” The melody of the song constantly changed. “Oh Happy Day” was written by Philip Doddridge in the 18th century. Photo Credit: Reba McEntire/ The Origin of “Oh Happy Day” Reba McEntire praises the Lord as she recorded one of the traditional gospel songs, “Oh Happy Day,” on her 2017 album Sing it Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. We are blessed and cleansed with His power, therefore, let us sing songs that praise the Lord of his goodness. Bird is married to professional musician Sena Thibodeaux Bird and they have seven children ranging in age from 25 to 8.Oh, what a happy day it is indeed when Jesus washed away our sins because without Him, what are we going to do? Jesus’ death led us to eternal life and a beautiful future. He is also a night manager for Tallassee Super Foods, a columnist for the Tallassee Tribune, and a radio host on 580 WACQ & FM 98.5. Michael Bird has been a music teacher for 26 years, most of that time for Tallassee City Schools in Elmore County. But without a doubt, the Good News reached the mainstream when that message was needed most. It has been featured in dozens of films and television shows in the years since.Įdwin Hawkins could not have known that his use of contemporary sounds like synthesizers, a Latin groove and a R&B lead vocalist would influence later generations of gospel music. “Oh Happy Day” won a Grammy in 1970 for Best Soul Performance. Right there at that moment, “Oh Happy Day,” a song that was 200 years old, was riding the charts, and was even performed twice on the first day of the Woodstock festival by people who had probably never set foot inside of a church. Yes, the summer of ’69, immortalized forever in popular culture as the summer of the “Helter Skelter” Tate-LaBianca murders, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon, and three days of peace and music at Max Yasgur’s farm in Woodstock. The song entered the Hot 100 in May of 1969 and got all the way to #4 that summer. Then, the choir calms back down for a minute before singing praises that grow louder and more insistent with each repeat: “Oh happy day!” “He taught me how to watch, fight and pray / and live rejoicing every day” The choir is backing up the lead vocalist in a call-and-response style, but then the chorus bursts wide open and all of the voices sing: “Oh happy day / when Jesus washed / my sins away.” The simplified lyrics of the original hymn get boiled down to three lines: The arrangement starts off peaceful and quiet but builds in momentum. Morrison later became a backup singer on records for Paul Simon, Boz Scaggs, and Chicago, among others. I was – but I also was reading the lyrics.” Everyone thought I was feeling the spirit. During the recording, I put up my hands, with my palms facing me. “At the church, I wrote two sections on my palms with a pen. “The lyrics were simple and they rhymed, but they were a lot to remember,” she said in a later interview. The lead singer on the record is Dorothy Morrison, who had been singing in her church choir in Richmond, California, when selected for the Youth Choir. “I liked how he alternated between major and minor keys and created rhythmic patterns on the keyboard,” he explained. With its jazzy groove featuring echoes of Brazilian pop, Hawkins cited Sergio Mendes as an influence on his radical reworking of the hymn. Before long, Buddah Records signed the Northern California State Youth Choir – now known as the Edwin Hawkins Singers – to a distribution deal. A popular disc jockey named Abe “Voco” Kesh put “Oh Happy Day” into its regular rotation, and the song became a local hit. One of the copies made its way to KSAN-FM in San Francisco. The eight tracks were hastily recorded in a church on a basic two-track tape recorder. The youth choir was comprised of people aged 17 to 25, and they needed to raise money for a trip to a church youth conference in Washington, D.C. In preparation for the Northern California State Youth Choir, Hawkins arranged eight hymns for the young people to sing.
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