Description
There isnt much known about Champion, except that the beloved soul singer Bettye Swann happened to be his sister and confidant a secret that the pastor only shared later on.
We started working with Pastor Champion a few years ago while we were researching another release, The Time for Peace Is Now: Gospel Music About Us. We found him on the YouTube channel of the 37th Street Baptist Church in Oakland, California, put together by their pastor Bishop Dr. W.C. McClinton. We liked Champion so much that in 2018 we decided to make an album together, and to record it analog like the gospel recordings we love, on a two-track Nagra reel-to-reel. Over the course of just two evenings (when the workday was done), Champion taught his bandmusicians who had never played together beforea handful of songs that he regularlyperformed.
What followed was several years of trying to figure out how to move forward Champion refused to be interviewed for the liner notes or to come to New York to keep recording. But there was something special that happened with everyone in that room those days, never to be repeated. It wasnt perfect, but it was honest.
As time went on, Champion kept refusing to be interviewed, saying that hed had a hard life and he didnt want to talk about it. He didnt want to talk about growing up in Louisiana, his mother being accosted by the Klan, or about his fathers gambling. He didnt want to talk about being jailed for 90 days for using a whites-only bathroom, being in gangs or having a street name. We said that was finehe could talk about what he wanted to talk about. And he said that he didnt really want to talk about anything.
Unfortunately those conversations ended as Pastor Champion died in the last month of 2021. So we have this album as a remembrance of him. Its quite a different record for us, almost Alan Lomaxian in feel, if Alan Lomax recorded outsider, soul gospel artists who played electric guitar.
God bless Pastor Champion and Mother Champion, peace be with them and their family. Love to all.Credit: Pastor Champion Bandcamp
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