Born and raised in Dallas, deep soul diva Tommie Young was spotted by Shreveport, Louisiana-based performer and producer Bobby Patterson during a 1972 nightclub appearance. Patterson, who ran the fledgling Soul Power label alongside composer Jerry Strickland, signed her immediately and headed back to Shreveport to prepare instrumental backings for O.V. Wright’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and Percy Sledge’s “Take Time to Know Her.” Young journeyed to Shreveport to lay down the vocals, completing both songs in single takes; the resulting debut single became a southern cult classic whose soaring soprano, steeped in gospel, carried the unmistakable imprint of Aretha Franklin’s secular work without ever sounding imitative.
For the follow-up, Patterson and Strickland wrote the ballad “Do You Still Feel the Same Way,” which scored heavily in Memphis and New Orleans, reached the national R&B Top 30, and remained her strongest commercial success. Its successor, Patterson’s “She Don’t Have to See You (To See Through You),” stands as her artistic peak even though it only managed modest chart placement. Her sole secular album, also titled Do You Still Feel the Same Way?, soon followed and yielded the singles “You Brought It All On Yourself” and “You Came Just in Time.”
Persistent distribution woes at Soul Power, compounded by Young’s reluctance to promote her records, curtailed further progress; she chose instead to sing anonymously at her father’s Dallas church. She eventually stepped away from secular music altogether, issuing one final single, “Get Out of My Life,” in 1975—the last release on Soul Power. Brief renewed attention arrived in 1978 when she topped the soundtrack for the NBC tele-film A Woman Called Moses, the story of Harriet Tubman.
Following her marriage, she adopted the professional name Tommye Young-West and released several gospel albums, among them 1993’s Just Call Me Tommye and 2000’s Believe, while largely setting aside her earlier Soul Power material despite enduring admiration from later deep-soul collectors.
