Jelly Roll couldn’t be prouder of Lainey Wilson. The two were friends long before their careers collectively took off, and although they now sometimes compete in awards show categories and for chart positions, no one believes Wilson deserves all of her success, and more, than Jelly Roll.
“I pride myself on being a really hard worker,” Jelly Roll tells Taste of Country. “I’ve never seen nobody — this is what I say to people: I do the stuff that other people in this town won’t do. Lainey Wilson does the stuff I won’t do. She is willing. She is working.”
Jelly Roll recalled a time earlier this year when Wilson showed just how hard she is willing to work, which is why Jelly Roll says she deserved her recent Entertainer of the Year win at the CMA Awards.
“I [saw] her on American Idol … and when I see her, I can tell she’s a little frazzled. I was like, ‘You okay?'” the Nashville native shares. “She had just pulled up, she was running late. She was like, ‘And I had to wake up at 5:00 this morning to catch a flight, and had a layover at such and such for five hours. I leave here and I got a 4:00 AM flight tomorrow. I’m doing a corporate show at 3:00 in the afternoon, and then I fly to another city to Luke Combs.’ These were commercial flights. This girl was running on fumes. Her work ethic is next level.”
Jelly Roll and Wilson are sharing their first Grammy Awards nominations, for their “Save Me” collaboration, although Jelly Roll doesn’t think they should win the trophy. Jelly Roll is also nominated in the all-genre Best New Artist category, while Wilson received another nod, for Best Country Album, for her 2022 Bell Bottom Country.
“Full disclosure with each other, I think Vince Gill deserves the Country Collab of the Year,” Jelly Roll recently said at Audacy‘s Riptide Music Festival, referring to his “Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)” collaboration with Paul Franklin, from their Ray Price tribute album, Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys.
“I just think Vince is an icon, and I don’t know how many more years we’re going to be around to give him his flowers, so we should now,” he added.
Wilson’s star power might be at an all-time high, thanks to her hard work, but Jelly Roll will take a little bit of the credit for her part on their “Save Me” duet.
“The obvious is Lainey is one of my best friends in the music business,” Jelly Roll told CMT. “Lainey, Ernest, everybody knows my little squad … These are the people I talked to pretty religiously. And, I think it was special that I was the guy that got to show the world that side of Lainey.”
Both Jelly Roll and Wilson will join Morgan Wallen for select dates on Wallen’s 2024 One Night At A Time Tour.
