Jelly Roll Co-Hosts 8/5-6

This week’s Country Countdown USA co-host is Jelly Roll, who joins Lon for his first time as co-host. His debut country song “Son Of a Sinner” went to #1 earlier this year. He’s just released a new album: Whitsitt Chapel. He’s friends with Morgan Wallen, Chris Young, and Lainey Wilson. Plus he talks about writing with Miranda Lambert.

His current Top 5 is “Need A Favor.”  He tells Lon, “I thought about praise music and church music.  I wondered what does that sound like for someone like me.  I made an early decision on connecting, not entertaining.  And to me, Need A Favor is a great connection.”

Lon told Jelly that the first of our co-hosts to talk about him was Keith Urban.  Jelly responded: “I heard that when it happened. This was the first time that somebody I didn’t know in country music stood up for me.  I posted that clip on my InstaGram.  When I finally met Keith, I hugged him like I knew him my whole life.  I’ll remember that 20 years from now.”

Lon pointed out it’s only been about 14 months since Son of a Sinner debuted in the countdown: “What a difference a year can make when country radio gets behind you. Country fans are loyal to the core. Once country radio takes that thing to #1, and it connects, it’s not a soft hit. You know what happens, it’s life-changing in every way it could possibly be.”

Jelly Roll has had hits in other genres of music. Lon wanted to know why was it important to him to be in country: “They’d ask me what I wanted, and I’d say ‘I want to play the Grand Ole Opry.‘ That was my dream. Big fan of country music, and also, I’m from Nashville.  I’m a local kid.  It’s my life story of pushing square pegs in round holes.”

Lon then said country is a very wide format: “I think this is what makes country the coolest genre on earth. Look at what Morgan Wallen has been able to do.  I think people will look back at these Morgan records and Luke Combs records and they will stand the test of time.  It’s never been a cooler time to be a part of a genre.”

Jelly is good friends with Chris Young, and says they want to record a song together: ”There’s no way you won’t see something from me & Chris. We’re too good friends not to. He sat next to my father at the Tin Roof for years and he’d always buy my dad a drink. My dad didn’t know who he was. That’s who Chris is.

He’s also good friends with Morgan Wallen: ”He had nothing to gain endorsing me, cosigning me, even being my friend was a risk. He’s one of the Top 3 performers in the world. It’s been really cool to call him my brother and watch what’s happened to Last Night. Watching it be the biggest song in the world.”

Jelly’s new album includes a song he wrote with Miranda Lambert.  He described that day: “I had tweeted a year ago that I wanted to be Miranda’s friend. It turns out that Miranda saw that. So I walked in, and she was warm & inviting.  The coolest thing was there were these moments when I realized why she’s country royalty. She did the background vocals on the song. We’re all really close. I’ve got a friend for life based on that one day.”

Jelly Roll also has great stories this week about Tyler Hubbard, Chris Young, Ashley McBryde, Lainey Wilson, and Old Dominion.

NEXT WEEK: Morgan Wallen

Tags: featured

Category: CO-HOST