Pastor Wylie Champion was an itinerant preacher, an outsider gospel artist about whom little is known. He spent decades roaming up and down the California coastline armed with an electric guitar -- playing, singing in a honeyed baritone, and preaching along the road well into his seventies. Champion was discovered by Luaka Bop from YouTube videos posted by the 37th Street Baptist Church in Oakland. They recorded him live to analog two-track in the church's sanctuary in 2018, leading a group of musicians who had never played together before. Champion died a few months before its release. I Just Want to Be a Good Man consists of ten selections drawn from more than 2,000 spontaneously composed fragments, sermons, and songs. As this recording attests, he could easily have been a successful soul singer had God not become the central focus of his life. He certainly had the DNA: His sister was soul singer Bettye Swann.
In the "Intro," after strumming a few chords, Champion exhorts parishioners not to talk. He launches into the prescient "I Know That You've Been Wounded (Church Hurt)" with a jaunty chord progression and a soulman's croon. There is a hint of grain in his delivery, adding resonance and poignant vulnerability. His slippery rhythmic sense buoys a compassionate lyric. "He'll Make a Way (Trust in the Lord)" is a raw, stirring hymn, bridging gospelized soul and Southern folk-blues. The band joins in on "Talk to God," a choogling gospel shuffle with handclaps, "amens," and a group chorus pulsed by a B-3 organ. Set highlight "In the Name of Jesus (Everytime)" finds the band in a minor-key soul-reggae groove that channels Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up." Champion instructs the band in the chord changes to the stunningly beautiful "To Be Used, By You (I Just Want to Be a Good Man)." He testifies amid its circular progression. The band choogles and shakes on the more traditional "Who Do Men Say I Am?" as the congregation sings along in affirmation. The band pushes him harder, roaring and wailing to buoy his deeply moving assertion of truth. "Storm of Life (Stand by Me)" is a swampy gospel blues. One can hear the ghost of Mississippi Fred McDowell in his delivery. Champion carves out the lyric with bedrock conviction. Amid organ and strummed guitar, he confesses sin and struggle yet affirms God's mercy. "In the Service of the Lord" and an improvised reprise titled "I Just Want to Be a Good Man (To Be Used, By You)" are manifestos. They are simultaneously emotionally wrenching and uplifting. The congregants join the refrain, as a saxophone and tambourine underscore each line.
This lone album testifies to Champion's musical and ministerial gifts. He sings and speaks plainly yet passionately and poetically about the love and strength God adds to his life. He relates without judgment these possibilities for others journeying through this deeply troubled world, rendering I Just Want to Be a Good Man an outsider gospel masterpiece.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo