To celebrate Father’s Day, R&B and soul singer Brian Owens and his father, Thomas Owens, will be hosting a concert this Sunday at Touhill Performing Arts Center, in addition to planning for the release of a new album, documentary, and video. They will also reportedly appear on NBC’s Today With Hoda & Jenna this Friday. Here’s what to know about the father-and-son duo’s busy schedule.
The New Album
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Brian and his father began working on their forthcoming album, Duets with Dad, more than two years ago, as a followup to mark the 10-year anniversary of their viral video for “A Change is Gonna Come.“
Brian explained that their family went through a lot while working on the album, as Brian’s mother passed away during that time. “The project just started to take on a completely different life and feel and vibe to it,” says Brian. “The songs take on different meanings.”
Brian says he and his father have a close bond, which he hopes to portray through their music. “He’s my friend, my pastor, the person I want to be like on this Earth,” Brian says. “He’s my conscience in a lot of ways—I hear him constantly in my mind.”
Their artistic alliance has also been a leading force in the creation of the album. “It’s been a really cool process, not just working with my friend and brother in Christ, but also producing with someone who I think is a really amazing singer,” Brian says. “I think that’s what a lot of people will hopefully experience with this—at the end of the day, as much as this is me being with my dad, I’m getting to produce and sing with a really good voice.”
The pair picked some of their favorite songs for the album, including “Try a Little Tenderness,” “Stand by Me,” “Bridge over Troubled Water,” and “I Got a Name,” as well as two original songs. The first is a rewrite of Brian’s song “A Beautiful Day,” which Brian rewrote as a duet with an “Americano soul” feel to match the pair’s style of music. He said the lyrics are indicative of what his dad has taught him. “‘I don’t care if there’s clouds up above because I know I’ll get by / We need the rain like the sun if we want to grow / It’s a beautiful day, and I feel fine,’” Brian sings. “He lives that every single day. Even when he lost my mom, he lives that.”
The father-son duo has also been filming a documentary, which will capture their relationship. “What they see in the video—that’s our relationship,” he says, adding that both the album and documentary are slated to be released this fall.
The Concert
Brian hopes to not only celebrate fatherhood with the new album’s debut but also include additional voices during the concert at Touhill Performing Arts Center on June 18.
Special guests include The Mighty Pines’ Neil Salsich (who recently appeared on The Voice), Hi Rhythm Section (the house band for hit soul albums by Al Green, Ann Peebles, and more), Malena Smith, and 20-piece modern string orchestra Pop! Pop! Pop!.
Tickets for the concert range from $25–$45, and live-stream tickets are available for $15. Both general admission and live-stream tickets can be purchased on the Duets with Dad website. VIP tickets are priced at $150 and include premium seating for two, a pre-show meet-and-greet, and a special merchandise package. (VIP tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at 314-516-4949.)
Brian hopes to make the concert an annual event celebrating fatherhood and allowing concert-goers opportunities to engage with hope through the music. “This needs to be the thing that everybody does for Fathers Day,” Brian says. “We want to turn it into that kind of tradition, where on Father’s Day you’re coming and seeing some music that celebrates fatherhood.”
The Background
A decade ago, Brian partnered with his father to film a cover of the song “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. At the time, Brian was working with Maryville University’s Kids Rock Cancer organization, and he posted the cover as a way to raise funds for the program. “The video was really just a commercial to get people to download the song,” Brian says. “It really didn’t do a whole lot. We didn’t get a ton of downloads or anything like that.”
Between 2013 and 2017, the video got modest views before it was reposted on Facebook in 2017. Within a couple of months, it had received 10 million views and drawn the attention of notable personalities such as reporter Dan Rather, comedian D.L. Hughley, and businesswoman Tina Knowles-Lawson.
Today, the video has been viewed more than 100 million times across the globe, and it still receives 50,000-plus views per day. “It was just kind of a thing where it was cool,” Brian says. “It wasn’t like anything crazy happened—people were just going to the video.”
What really captured Brian’s attention were the comments about the video. “It was everything from ‘Oh, this is amazing. It’s a great duet. I love this video,’ to ‘I listen to this every day. I’m dealing with suicidal ideation,’” Brian says. “It became something much greater, I think, than what we intended. But I think the hope that we both experience through our faith comes through very heavily for people in that video. That’s what, it seems like, people have continued to go back to. Just for a sense of hope.”
Ten years after his viral video, Brian and his father still share the same passion for touching people through their music, no matter how big or small the reach. “Everyone thinks you can catch lightning in a bottle—I think that video may be a once in a lifetime thing, and we may not ever put out something that affects people in that way, but I think we can definitely give them more stuff to listen to,” Brian says.
