AllMovie

When filmmakers David Leivick and Frederick Ritzenberg shot the documentary Gospel about some of the leading artists in sacred music, they gathered so much material that five years later they fashioned a second feature film from their outtakes. In Oh Happy Day, Leivick and Ritzenberg present powerful songs and testimonies from Shirley Caesar, the Clark Sisters, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Rev. James Cleveland, and Walter Hawkins and the Hawkins Family, while also telling the story of how the classic gospel song "Oh Happy Day" became a surprise hit single for the Edwin Hawkins Singers in 1969.