Cody Johnson is quickly becoming one of the reigning hitmakers in country music. While a large part of the credit for his success goes to his God-given talent, along with his unstoppable work ethic, the Texan says none of it would have happened without the unwavering support of his wife, Brandi. The two met when she was 18 and Johnson was 21, and within a month moved in together. One year later, the two got engaged, and by the following year, they were married.
Johnson had by then been performing whenever he could, while working a full-time job in a prison, after years spent as a professional bull-rider. Johnson thought his future was laid out and certain, until Brandi suggested he pursue music full-time, quitting college and working two jobs to make ends meet.
“I pretty much owe everything I have to her,” Johnson tells Cowboys & Indians. “I pray daily, ‘Thank you for this woman.’ She gave me a reason to not be a danger to myself. She had all the faith in me.”
Not that it was easy. By his own admission, Johnson was at times reckless and insecure about the path he had chosen, but Brandi never once wavered in her belief in him and his talent.
“I compensated for my lack of confidence in a lot of bad ways,” Johnson admits. “She recently said, ‘I always knew you would be this man. I knew this man was in that boy.’ What an intuitive woman. There are times I’ve wanted to quit music, in the last five years even. I’ve come home and said, ‘I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. It’s eating me up.’ And she’d say, ‘Yes you can. You got to. You’ve got to get back to work, have a better mindset, and push through.’ And I did. If I had to give it all up for her, I’d do it.”
Johnson might currently be one of the most in-demand artists, with a packed concert schedule that includes his current headlining tour, as well as opening for Luke Combs for select dates on Combs’ World Tour. He will also headline a night of RodeoHouston, where he previously tied a record held by George Strait and Garth Brooks by becoming only the third artist to sell out opening night of RodeoHouston, drawing more than 70,500 fans to his evening show. But success aside, the 35-year-old insists his most important job is being a husband and a father, raising his daughters on a ranch far removed from the Music City hub.
“We lead a pretty simple life,” Johnson admits. “We’re homeschooling our two girls. They feed the cows with me and then do their schoolwork. Brandi does the formal schooling. I show them the practical things … I want my kids to grow up on a ranch where they have to work and see the honesty and integrity of a hard day’s effort, to see the finished product with a show calf that they’ve raised out of our herd.
“I want to use the good luck we’ve come into to invest in that,” he adds. “They’re not making any more land these days. I’m not interested in Lamborghinis, an apartment in New York, or a beach house. I want to invest in the land and the herd.”
Find all of Johnson’s music and upcoming shows at CodyJohnsonMusic.com.
