gospel singer
Personal Information
Born Tramaine Aunzola Davis Hawkins, October 11, 1951, in San Francisco, CA; daughter of Roland Duvall Davis and Lois Ruth Davis; married Walter Hawkins, 1970, divorced; children: Jamie, Trystan; married Tommy Richardson; children: Demar.
Religion: Church of Hope Community Church.
Career
Gospel artist. Vocalist with the Heavenly Tones, the Northern California State Choir, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples, the Edwin Hawkins Singers, and the Walter Hawkins Love Center Choir.
Life's Work
For more than twenty-five years, Tramaine Hawkins has delivered the message of the Gospel through her professional career in gospel music. She began singing when only four years old, in the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California where her grandfather was pastor. Though Hawkins developed her passion for gospel music during childhood, her career accelerated in 1969 when the Northern California State Choir--which she had joined-- recorded, "Oh Happy Day." The secular world was enthralled with the two-hundred-year-old gospel song and it was indeed a happy day for Hawkins. Her first performance with the choir after the song's success was at Madison Square Garden.
As a child, Hawkins sang with the Sunshine Band and later with the Heavenly Tones, a group of four girls. After eleven years together, the Heavenly Tones began to get offers to sing at secular jobs, but Hawkins felt her calling was still gospel music. This sense of vocation has always been what motivated her to change any barrier to that goal. In 1995, she told Essence magazine, "The real purpose, I feel, for my being here is not just to sing gospel, but to minister gospel." When the Northern California State Choir's name was chaged to the Edwin Hawkins Singers and the choir started to do a lot of club dates for entertainers, such as the Jackson Five and Diana Ross, Hawkins chose to leave the group.
For eleven months, she sang with Andrae Crouch's Disciples, later admitting to Twila Knaak, of Christian Herald, "The Lord really has a way of planning your life. That experience broadened my feel for gospel music and now I think I have more to offer." Yet Hawkins missed her old group and rejoined it. In 1970, after touring Europe with the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Walter Hawkins--who played the piano even when Tramaine sang with the Heavenly Tones and the brother of Edwin--proposed and Tramaine accepted. During their many years of marriage, Tramaine worked side by side with Walter, also a singer, recording artist, composer, arranger, producer, and the pastor of the Love Center Church in Oakland, California.
Eventually they divorced and Tramaine married Tommy Richardson. On occasion, Walter and Tramaine still work together. In 1990, Walter quoted in East Bay Express saying of other gospel song writers, "They can't write for Tramaine like I can." Lee Hildebrand, in the East Bay Express, explained, "What makes her so special is the rich quality and sheer strength of her voice, the urgency of her delivery, and the clarity of her enunciation. To her, the message of her songs is all-important and she never allows purely musical devices to dilute it." Hawkins has a controversial, contemporary style that has been criticized over the years. According to Hildebrand, Hawkins raised suspicion in 1985 within the gospel community when her techno-funk hit, "Fall Down," from the Spirit of Love album, topped the dance charts despite the religious content of its lyrics. After the uproar, Hawkins felt that everyone but her family and church family had turned their backs on her.
In a 1990 concert, still daring, Hawkins brought in musicians and singers from outside the gospel field to participate in a live- recording project, including rock guitarist Carlos Santana, jazz organist Jimmy McGriff, and jazz tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. Jazz and gospel share common roots, but it is rare for them to cross paths since many churchgoers view jazz as "the devil's music." Jon Michael Spencer, an authority on African American hymnal music and music history, challenged that concept with his book, Blues and Evil. He explained how spirituals were a "precious gift squeezed out of the toils and tears of our ancestral afflictions," and how the blues were like them. Carolyn M. Jones, in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, notes, "The blues is a form of prayer, concerned both with life in the world and with the after life, and the blues can also be eulogy, mourning loss in times of tragedy. The performance, the preaching, of the blues lays bare the theological meaning of African-American life." Tramaine Hawkins's success with her mixing of traditional gospel, blues, jazz, and other singing styles helped create what is called contemporary gospel.
Contemporary gospel has broad appeal. In 1996, when the Lincoln Center Festival committee in New York City decided the music for that year would be gospel music, Tramaine Hawkins was one of the artists chosen to perform. Jon Pareles, in the New York Times, described Hawkins as, "Like other current gospel singers, she keeps one foot in old gospel styles while testing possibilities. Her set included a Mahalia Jackson song along with a quasi-country tune and a pop-soul ballad, all with proselytizing lyrics." Pareles claimed Hawkins could turn a song into a "fervent, flamboyant testimonial."
Those knowledgeable about the gospel music scene continue to recognize Hawkins's influence. In 1997, Anne Elletson of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and one of the producers of "The Story of Gospel Music," part of the Great Performances documentary series in which Hawkins appeared, commented, "In many ways, the story of gospel music is the story of black America." According to Fletcher Roberts of the New York Times, "Gospel grew out of traditional spirituals and hymns and the Pentecostal revivalism that was taking place at the turn of the century. It is as peculiarly American a hybrid as are jazz and blues, with which it has shared a sometimes uneasy relationship." Gospel's biggest commercial breakthrough, according to Roberts, came with the release of "Oh Happy Day," a song Hawkins continues to perform. Hawkins remarked in the "Story of Gospel Music" production, "We're singing the words of life in accordance with what we believe in."
Hawkins has recorded at least nine solo albums and won numerous awards, including two Grammys, two Dove Awards, and two Communications Excellence to Black Audiences {CEBA} Awards. Awards are not what ignites Hawkins, though. She explained to Essence, when asked about the source of her magic, "There's a certain place when I'm performing onstage where it's almost like I know that God is listening to me. It's like His presence, His Spirit, is sitting right there, and he's saying, 'Go on, girl--go this way, say this, now just stop right there,' you know? And when I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes. It has a spirit. And it's awesome." Awesome is certainly one way to describe Tramaine Hawkins when she has the spirit.
Awards
Two Grammys, two Dove Awards, two Communications Excellence to Black Audiences Awards, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Award, Stellar Award, British Gospel Music Award, several awards from James Cleveland's Gospel Music Workshop of America; Gospel Music Excellence Award, Tramaine Hawkins Live, 199l.
Works
Selective Discography
- Tramaine, Light Records, 1980.
- Determined, Light Records, 1983.
- Spirit of Love, Light Records, 1985.
- Tramaine: Treasury, Light Records, 1986.
- The Search Is Over, World Records, 1986.
- Freedom, World Records, 1987.
- The Joy That Floods My Soul, Sparrow Records, 1988.
- Tramaine Hawkins, Live!, Sparrow Records, 1990.
- All My Best to You, Sparrow Records, 1994.
- Higher Place, Columbia Records, 1994.
- Vocalist on numerous other albums, such as the first three Love Alive albums recorded by Walter Hawkins.
Further Reading
Books
- Spencer, Jon Michael, Blues and Evil, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville), 1993.
- Christian Herald, October 1980, pp. 36-38.
- East Bay Express, May 18, 1990, pp. 24-25.
- Essence, May 1995, p. 60.
- Jet, May 6, 1991, p. 57; September 9, 1991, p. 54.
- Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Spring 1996, pp. 181-85.
- New York Times, July 19, 1996, sec. C, p. 23; July 24, 1996, sec.
- C, p. 14; February 2, 1997, sec. 12, p. 3.
— Eileen Daily
