Soul Tempo
Doing Our Father’s Business
Soul Tempo Music (to be released Summer 2011)

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Organized in New Haven, Connecticut in 1985, Soul Tempo is a contemporary quartet with old-school sensibility. The group’s breathy, light-as-helium harmonies and finger-popping rhythms evoke the sound of Boys II Men and the Christianaires.

Winners of the 2009 McDonald’s Gospel Fest, Soul Tempo presents its latest CD, Doing Our Father’s Business. The cover photo depicts the group – Jeremiah Brunson, Anthony Burnett, and brothers Kevin and Phillip Mitchell – looking like CIA agents on assignment, complete with dark suits, white shirts and no-nonsense briefcases. This shows their tough determination, but their singing is more mellow and smooth than such a serious demeanor suggests.

The album is a mix of new songs, R&B classics given various levels of sacred makeovers, and vintage gospel. R&B covers include Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready;” “Fix It” contains funky bass runs and musical echoes straight out of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.”

Vintage gospel gets its props with a straightaway cover of the Soul Stirrers’ “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” which adds even more doo-wop to Sam Cooke’s 1956 original. The group’s almost note-for-note cover of the Swan Silvertones’ “The Lord’s Prayer,” also from ’56, is included here; it was Soul Tempo who sang it in the 1996 hit film, The Preacher’s Wife.  The group also reprises Andrae’ Crouch’s “Jesus is the Answer” on Doing Our Father’s Business.
“Holy Name” is a radio-friendly praise ballad, followed by “He’s Everything to Me,” which features the sassy lead of Yvette Early, one of the few female voices heard on the project. “Further Up the Road” is the album’s uptempo quartet drive piece, featuring dynamic guitar work by Derrick “Hot Sauce” Cummings.
Doing Our Father’s Business is nicely produced by five-time Grammy nominee Chris Davis and a respectable introduction to Soul Tempo for anyone who has yet to hear their vocal harmony singing.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Never Give Up,” “The Lord’s Prayer,” “Touch the Hem of His Garment.”

Leave A Comment

Written by : Bob Marovich

Bob Marovich is a gospel music historian, author, and radio host. Founder of Journal of Gospel Music blog (formally The Black Gospel Blog) and producer of the Gospel Memories Radio Show.

Related Posts

BMI Christian Music Awards 2025 logo
2025 BMI Christian Awards to Celebrate the Genre’s Top Songwriters and Music Publishers June 17

2025 BMI Christian Awards to Celebrate the Genre’s Top Songwriters and Music Publishers June 17

May 21st, 2025|0 Comments
Ad for Juneteenth concert in Montgomery, Alabama 2025
Equal Justice Initiative Brings Grammy Award Winning Musical Artists to Montgomery for Juneteenth

Equal Justice Initiative Brings Grammy Award Winning Musical Artists to Montgomery for Juneteenth

May 20th, 2025|0 Comments
Photo of Jo Jo Wallace
RIP: Jo Jo Wallace, Guitarist, Singer with the Sensational Nightingales; also wrote “The Twist”

RIP: Jo Jo Wallace, Guitarist, Singer with the Sensational Nightingales; also wrote “The Twist”

May 10th, 2025|0 Comments