Oh Happy Day

Color, NR (nothing offensive), 60 min., DVD $19.95

DVD: artist profiles, gospel music history

First Run: L, 1983, $$1 mil.

Street: June 15, Prebook: May 18

Directors: David Leivick, Frederick Ritzenberg

The performers might be sporting funk-era finery, but the sounds heard in this concert film are, for the most part, that of traditional gospel. The group called "the Temptations of gospel," the Mighty Clouds of Joy, get high marks for being the slickest-looking act, though the real show-stopping numbers occur early on, courtesy of old-school shouter Shirley Caesar and the classy "King" of religious music, Rev. James Cleveland. Unfortunately, the film doesn't provide the uninitiated with a suitable introduction to the genre as a whole and is, in fact, composed of songs deleted from the noted 1983 documentary Gospel, which chronicled a 1982 concert at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Calif. The oddest thing about the feature is that the song it is named for, the familiar gospel tune by Edwin Hawkins Sings that hit the mainstream Top 10 in 1969, is heard only in a brief, three-minute rendition by Walter Hawkins and the Hawkins Family. The DVD provides helpful biographical information on the performers but not a clue as to what happened to Walter's older brother, hit maker Edwin. --Ed Grant

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