Pastor Champion

Pastor Wylie Champion was an enigma. An itinerant preacher, a pastor without a church, he was an outsider gospel artist who spent decades roaming up and down the California coastline armed with an electric guitar, playing, singing in a seasoned yet honeyed baritone, and preaching along the road well into his seventies. Champion's background is almost apocryphal. He was discovered by Luaka Bop from You Tube videos. They recorded him live to analog two-track in the sanctuary of the 37th Street Baptist Church in Oakland, California. He led a group of musicians who had never played together before. Champion died a few months before the 2022 release of I Just Want to Be a Good Man, his only album.