For a long time, it looked to Charles Wesley Godwin as if 2024 would be the greatest year of his life. He was fresh off the late 2023 release of Family Ties, his third album, and splitting his time between a sold-out headlining tour and supporting slots for Luke Combs, Turnpike Troubadours, and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. At home, Godwin and his wife, Samantha, spent the year preparing for the birth of their third child, a boy they decided to name Samuel. In mid-August, he opened for Turnpike and Isbell in Kansas City to a crowd of 18,000 — and sang with Turnpike during the encore to a lengthy ovation. Six days later, all that unraveled.
“August 22nd, 2024, we lost Samuel,” Godwin says. “He was stillborn. I buried him. Ever since that day, I’ve been a different person.”
The West Virginia native had written himself out of a lengthy writer’s block with Family Ties, his third record and his Big Loud debut, and he had written prolifically well into 2024. Instantly, all of the songs seemed pointless. “None of those fit what I needed to say anymore,” Godwin tells Rolling Stone.
Well, one did, a song titled “Christian Name” that he wrote it 2023. “I was in a way different place at that time,” he recalls. During a rare weekend at home, Godwin wrote the song — an allusion to his great grandfather, Charles Godwin, a Methodist preacher — after putting the kids to bed one night. “Family Ties was in the bag, and I remember thinking that night: ‘The next album, I ought to make an album about faith,’” he says.
Godwin drops Christian Name on July 24. Only the title track was written before the loss of Samuel. If you count the opening “Sermon” — which is just that, a sermon delivered by the preacher Dave Stacy over a piano melody — the album has 13 tracks. Godwin wrote the title track alone. The remaining 11 were co-writes with some of Nashville’s brightest lyricists. Stephen Wilson Jr., Aaron Raitiere, Lori McKenna, and Liz Rose are just some of the collaborators.
The result is a record as deeply personal as the circumstances that gave rise to it. Christian Name is an album about faith without being a gospel album. Godwin was in his feelings on Family Ties, and he picks that up on the new LP. The difference is that Christian Name was formed through the prism of grief, despair, and eventually redemption.
“It was cathartic, therapeutic, working on it,” Godwin says. “I think they helped me get it out, you know? I still have rough days, and certain moments in the days where I’ll just think about everything. But it helped me process things. The songs helped me feel better, and it was emotional recording them.”
All of Godwin’s previous records had been recorded with structure. He’d secure studio time, block out two weeks on the calendar, and make a record. Christian Name, by contrast, was recorded in fits and starts over most of a year. Godwin’s bandmate, Al Torrance, produced the album at studios in Bend, Oregon, New York City, and Nashville — though the bulk of the project was recorded at Torrance’s Music Garden Studios in New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
Over the course of writing and recording Christian Name in such a collaborative manner, Godwin came to grips with the network he had forged for himself across all lines of music, and its role in his healing process.
“After what happened to Samantha and I,” he says, “I think I needed the help. My other three albums, for the most part, were all solo written. If I would have written solo for this album and not had that collaboration with the folks that I did, I think it wouldn’t have been very digestible. It would have been too dark, too sad, and just wouldn’t have had enough balance. If I would have gone about this by myself, it probably would have been a hard listen.”
Instead, Christian Name finds Godwin in full voice. He’s had an enlightenment, and he’s sharing with anyone who will listen. He also has help: Luke Combs and Wyatt Flores contribute vocals on a pair of tracks.
Combs sings on “Better That Way,” a fast-tempo ode to the reasons that Godwin found to be happy again, like “Radio singing a Turnpike song,” which he rattles off before getting to the chorus. Combs picks up the second verse.
“I thought about it in my gut before my brain ever thought about it,” Godwin says of Combs’ cameo. “‘I should ask Luke to be on this with me.’ I’ve never been adversarial, never talked shit or anything, I’ve always been happy that things have happened the way that they have. But I know that I am a new-to-radio artist. I don’t have those relationships. So, I thought if Luke would be on this — first of all, it would be awesome, because he has one of the best voices in the world. And second off, our principles align. Even though the songs is the most surface-level and the most light on the album, it does have that backbone and underlying message I like to convey through my music. Luke’s a family man as well.”
Flores, meanwhile, shows up when the album is at its most poignant. Godwin started writing “Hey There Son” in 2019 after his first child was born. He thought it sounded like a Lori McKenna song and, after putting it on the shelf for five years, sought out McKenna to finish it. The finished product is an acoustic tearjerker, in which Godwin speaks directly to his son. In the last verse, the song changes to “Hey There Dad,” and Flores picks it up in the voice of a child speaking back to Godwin.
“Al and I thought that it was essential that we have another voice to finish that song,” Godwin says. “I know it’s really not your traditional feature. It doesn’t give a whole lot to the featured artist to sing, but I think it’s the most impactful that a feature could possibly be.
“Wyatt and I are buddies. We’ve toured together for years. He’s 11 years younger than me, and his voice sounds it, too,” Godwin continues. “He has a little bit more youth coming through the microphone, so I thought that it would feel like, to the listener, that it is the son singing.”
A little more than a year after losing Samuel, Godwin and Samantha welcomed another son. They now have two boys and a girl. Earlier this month, Godwin kicked off the Christian Name Tour, which will run through November and take him coast to coast — with come co-headline appearances with Dylan Gossett sprinkled in during August and September. When the tour started, Samantha and the children joined him on tour. It’s a first for the Godwins.
“Getting to have my family out on the bus with me, I get to show my kids and my wife big parts of the country. We got snow-capped Rockies just south of this parking lot that we’re parked at while I’m talking to you,” he says. “That’s a special thing, and I’m really enjoying that. I don’t know what the next thing will be about, but as soon as this record is out, I’ll get right to work on whatever is in my heart to say.”
