Gospel legend killed by cancer
Walter Hawkins, a gospel singer, composer and priest from Oakland that has been awarded by the Grammy Awards, died Sunday, at the age of 61.
Hawkins had been ill in the last period of time, and passed away at his California home from Ripon after suffering from pancreatic cancer. His older brother, Edwin Hawkins, said that he had lost not his brother but also his pastor and his best friend, that Hawkins had suffered a lot and that he will be missed by everyone. Hawkins was born in Oakland and he studied for becoming a priest at Berkeley from University of California. This is when he started singing and recorded his first album in 1972, titled “Do Your Best”. The next year he became a priest and founded the Love Center Church in Oakland where he introduced a choir.
During the 1980s Hawkins recorded a lot of albums and gained nine Grammy Award nominations and a prize in 1980 when he won the award with “The Lord’s Prayer” and performed on the televised Grammy Awards ceremony. Hawkins later released “Love Alive III” that was for 34 weeks in the first places of the Billboard gospel album sales chart and sold more than a million copies. The next album, “Love Alive IV,” released in 1993 was a success too, and he was planning a new “Love Alive” when he died.
