We recently came upon Ryan Ellis’ musical tastes and quickly added him to our playlists. This year, Ellis recently released his debut studio album, and it has us excited for what’s to come. We were really moved by the amazing song “Heart of the Father.”

The song “Heart of the Father” is firmly rooted at the nexus of R&B and Christian music. The song has a strong melody that causes goosebumps as soon as the first chorus ends. It just has a very joyous vibe that makes it stand out right away and makes you want to hear more from this outstanding musician.

Ellis puts on a melismatic clinic with a soaring tenor and vocal versatility that are the envy of any musician in the genre, helped by a strong performance by guest artist DOE. Their vocal harmonies, which tie the whole song together, were highly appreciated by us. Together, these components create an emotionally charged middle, where DOE hits certain notes that we thought would shatter glass.

Ellis describes how the entire song came about in the explanation video, which is included below. Ellis had been introduced to the chorus line by the worship leader at his church, and after hearing the music and words, he was moved to finish it.

A sound engineer who happened to be in the room at the time and was not on duty, according to Ellis, just started putting up recording equipment as they were working on the song. They soon began to record the “Heart of the Father” demo.

“The whole session even felt like it was magical … The engineer was kinda hearing what we were writing and so he started setting microphones up and started putting it on the speakers and got the piano mic’d up … it was like this dude was off-hours and he was just there and felt like ‘This song is fire.’”

Then they hired a drummer to enter the room and set the beat, and before long they had the demo in their possession. They presented it to their label the next day, and the rest is history. The song is now considered to be among the greatest on Ryan Ellis’ self-titled first album, which also includes numerous other tracks deserving of radio exposure.