Walter Hawkins, a Grammy Award-winning gospel singer, composer and pastor from Oakland, died Sunday. He was 61.

Hawkins, who was battling pancreatic cancer, passed away at his home in Ripon, Calif., his older brother Edwin Hawkins said.

“Today, I lost my brother, my pastor, and my best friend,” said Edwin Hawkins. “Bishop Hawkins suffered bravely but now he will suffer no more and he will be greatly missed.”

Born in Oakland, Hawkins studied for his divinity degree at the University of California, Berkeley.

While at the university, he recorded his first album titled “Do Your Best” in 1972.

The next year, Hawkins became a pastor and founded the Love Center Church in Oakland, where he also formed a choir.

In the 1980s, Hawkins recorded a number of albums and earned nine Grammy Award nominations, according to friend and family representative, Bill Carpenter.

His “The Lord’s Prayer” won a Grammy in 1980 and he also performed on the televised Grammy Awards ceremony that year.

In 1990, Hawkins released “Love Alive III” which spent 34 weeks at the top on the Billboard gospel album sales chart, while going on to sell more than a million copies, according to Carpenter.

In 1993 his next album, “Love Alive IV,” also hit the top spot on the album sales chart. Between work on the two albums, Hawkins was ordained a bishop in October 1992.

At the time of his death, Hawkins was planning a new “Love Alive” CD concert recording for this fall.

Besides his brother Walter, Hawkins is survived by two children, two grandchildren and a number of nieces and nephews.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

Fred Hammond’s upcoming release Love Unstoppable is on its way to becoming another hit for the celebrated architect of urban praise and worship before it’s official Sept. 29th release.

This week, “They That Wait” officially becomes a Top-10 radio hit, reaching the #9 spot with a bullet.  Additionally, the CD is #10 on iTunes’ Christian/Gospel album chart.

Due out this week on the Verity Gospel Music label, Hammond’s latest CD is lyrically rich and sonically brilliant with musical textures that incorporate driving bass lines, R&B rhythms and jazz stylings.

The first single, “They That Wait” featuring John P. Kee, has been a radio favorite all summer and shows no signs of slowing down.  The CD also includes the gems “Find No Fault”, “Lord How I Love You” and, what Hammond calls his personal testimony, “Lost in You Again.”

Having gained critical acclaim in the early 80’s as a founding member of Gospel’s famed ensemble Commissioned, Fred Hammond created a new sound in the genre that distinguished him as the “Architect of Urban Praise and Worship.”  Now nearly thirty years later, he continues to be the leader of the pack.

One of Gospel music’s most dynamic duos has grabbed top spots in the Gospel Song and Gospel Album categories. Mary Mary’s latest CD “The Sound” holds the top spot in part because of the success of the disc’s #1 hit single “God In Me.”

The Sound has occupied the #1 slot on the Billboard Gospel Album chart for more than six months since its release in October 2008 and has been #1 for 15 consecutive weeks beginning April 19. The Sound has also spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart.

This latest single features Kierra “Kiki” Sheard on the track with the visionary blending of urban, hip-hop and pop elements that is the signature sound of Mary Mary.

Mary Mary performed “God In Me,” with guest artist Queen Latifah, at the 2009 BET Awards, where the pair was named this year’s Best Gospel Artist.

The sister duo also took this year’s NAACP Image Award for Best Gospel Artist (Traditional or Contemporary).

Donnie McClurkin bio (born November 9, 1959 in Amityville, New York) is a Grammy Award-winning American gospel music singer and minister.

Biography

McClurkin was born and raised in Amityville, New York. When he was seven years old, his two-year-old brother was hit and killed by a speeding driver. This greatly impacted the McClurkin family.The night of the funeral, McClurkin’s uncle raped McClurkin. Domestic violence and drug abuse took hold in the family. At the age of thirteen, McClurkin was again raped, this time by his cousin, his uncle’s son.

McClurkin found comfort through an aunt who sang background vocals with gospel music musician Andraé Crouch. After staying close to Crouch throughout his boyhood, he began to play piano and sing with his church youth choir. He formed the McClurkin Singers by the time he was a teenager, and later formed another group, the New York Restoration Choir.

Hired as an associate minister at Marvin Winans’ Perfecting Church in 1989, with his vocals during a seminar, McClurkin endured a bout with leukemia that year.

A friendship with a Warner Alliance executive resulted in his signing to the label for his 1996 self-titled LP, with producers Mark Kibble (of Take 6), Cedric and Victor Caldwell plus Andraé Crouch. The disc, which featured the perennially popular “Stand,” went gold shortly after being publicly lauded by Oprah Winfrey.At the 48th annual Grammy Awards, he won a grammy in the category Traditional Soul Gospel Album, for “Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs”.In 2004, he sang at the Republican National Convention.He is now the pastor of Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New York.

Views on homosexuality

Although he identified as gay for several years, McClurkin states that he is now ex-gay.In his book Eternal Victim, Eternal Victor McClurkin wrote that homosexuality is a spiritual issue and that one can be delivered from it by God;

“The abnormal use of my sexuality continued until I came to realize that I was broken and that homosexuality was not God’s intention… for my masculinity.”

He then describes himself as going through a process by which he became “a saved and sanctified man”. McClurkin has stated that homosexuality is a curse.McClurkin also speaks openly about sexual issues since becoming the biological father of a child with a woman to whom he was not married.McClurkin’s listing as a headlining performer for Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign stirred controversy because of his views on homosexuality.