When Jelly Roll won three CMT Awards in 2023, he was just beginning his meteoric rise in country music. The three he won were all for “Son of a Sinner,” his first single. At the time, Jelly Roll was very much still uncertain how welcome a former inmate with facial tattoos would be received in country music, but he had nothing to fear, thanks to the reaction of one artist, who heartily welcomed Jelly Roll as part of the country music community.
“When I won that first award, I came down those steps, and the first person I saw was Cody Johnson,” Jelly Roll tells CMT. “And he gave me a hug like we grew up together. He said, ‘Man, I’m so proud of you, dude. This is so good.’ First person I saw in that moment could have looked at me like, ‘Why is this dude here?’ But instead, it was just this genuine Texas cowboy, but just lit up like a Christmas tree for me.
“I never would have guessed how impactful that moment was, and that picture,” he continues. “I think about that picture all the time, because somebody caught us in that moment. We turned around and they took a picture real quick. That’s one of those I’ll have framed in my house until I die.”
Not surprisingly, Jelly and Cody Johnson have remained good friends. Jelly Roll joins Johnson on “Whiskey Bent,” from Johnson’s 2023 Leather album, but their friendship goes far beyond their own music.
“Cody Johnson is one of my best friends in country music,” Jelly Roll tells American Songwriter. “I love Cody Johnson. That cowboy is one of the most authentic, real dudes, ‘I love you’ kind of dudes. He’s the most Christlike dude I’ve met in the business. He is awesome.”
Their friendship to some might seem unlikely, since Jelly Roll spent time in prison, and Johnson was once a prison guard. But to Jelly Roll and Johnson, their friendship makes a lot of sense.
“I have a very thick background on incarceration. Jelly did time. We’ve talked about that,” Johnson says (via Taste of Country). “We struggle with a lot of the same pressures of, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be the best husband, to try to be the best father, for our [bands], to try to be the best leader, to be the best performer…it’s almost like a blessing and a curse, because we put so much on ourselves. I relate to him, and he relates to me. We’re so opposite; you got the cowboy hat and the face tattoos. I think it’s just an opposites attract kind of thing.”
Johnson also brought Jelly Roll out last year for his headlining night at RodeoHouston, performing in front of 73,000 fans. The massive crowd marked a new milestone for Jelly Roll.
“Behind the scenes, Cody Johnson has been one of my best friends in country music,” Jelly Roll said from the stage. “Since I came to country music, he has been a mentor, he has been a big brother. He has been my favorite person to talk to at 2:00 in the morning.”