Brian Owens sings soulful Motown inspired R&B songs with his band the Deacons of Soul and his community outreach centers around giving underserved youth the opportunity to experience music making. His latest album shares cowriting credits with some of them but for this song we’re going back to twenty seventeen when it was Brian Owens that did the learning -- from none other than Doobie Brother substitute vocalist turned full time lead singer Michael McDonald. The two revisited a song Brian Owens and the Deacons of Soul first recorded some years back on what Brian calls his ‘demo album’. That song got the proper treatment on the two thousand seventeen album “Soul Of Ferguson”. They both grew up singing gospel music in church in Ferguson, Missouri and they both went on from there to reflect messages of their faith in careers as singers and songwriters.

For this episode, Brian shared nine multitrack session files and we’ll start by hearing him shower Michael McDonald’s vocal performance with some much deserved praise for inspiring Brian to step it up. Here’s Brian talking about the singing that changed it all for him.