Jelly Roll is having his big moment in country music, and he is a multiple award nominee at next month’s CMA Awards in Nashville, including a nod for the album (Whitsett Chapel) and Male Vocalist.
Last week, Jelly debuted on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. In a video clip posted to his Instagram, his team highlighted the appearance with backstage footage where Jelly says at one point in the clip, “I hadn’t left much past Ohio three years ago. National TV, dude. Two shows in one day, baby, one on national television.”
At another moment in the clip, Jimmy Fallon comes into Jelly’s dressing room to say hi. The talk show host tells Jelly, “You’re crushing it, bud, you’re crushing it. Congratulations, and keep going.” After Fallon leaves, one of Jelly’s bandmates says that was pretty cool, and Jelly replies, “That wasn’t pretty cool, that was (expletive) awesome.” Jelly adds, “It was like Waylon Jennings on the Johnny Carson show.” He says, “We’re in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza; we’re in the big leagues. Johnny Carson was here.”
After he performed on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Jelly and his band boarded a private plane from New Jersey to West Virginia and, with a police escort, went straight on stage at a sold-out show. After the show, they made it in time to watch their performance on late-night TV.
See that post here. Note: there are many expletives in the Instagram video clip.
When he performed for the first time in June at Nashville’s CMA Fest, he revealed that during his first performance at Nissan Stadium in June, which was televised as a TV special on ABC, he was “trembling.”
Jelly posted a video clip of the performance on his Instagram. He wrote in a lengthy caption, “If you listen closely, you can hear my voice shaking the first half of the song— I was trembling; I was so nervous. 65,000 people in my hometown stadium- the same stadium my father took me to every Sunday for Titans games. The same stadium I’ve been taking my daughter to since she was a baby.”
He continued, “Thank you, CMA fest, for letting me be a part of your 50th anniversary – I have literally been going to ‘Fan Fair’ since I was a child. This night was unbelievable… to hear 65k people [sing] ‘and God, I need a Favor’ in unison like one voice. Speaking of ‘NEED A FAVOR,’ I can officially say it is the #1 song on Country Radio right now. There is no greater achievement in this town than being #1 in country radio. The fact this is my 2nd number one at Country Radio this year makes it almost unbelievable to me, to be honest – and this same song also held 3 weeks at number 1 on Rock radio.”
Jelly concluded, “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any wilder, y’all continue to amaze me. Thank y’all – this has been an unreal year.”
RELATED: Luke Bryan On Why Jelly Roll Is So Special
We gathered five of Jelly’s friends in country music and share his connection to each of them.
Cody Johnson
Jason Kempin x2/Getty ImagesCody told us of Jelly in June, “Jelly’s one of my favorite people to hang out with. You may not look at me and know this, but I have a pretty jaded past as well.” He added, “I’ve always said there was a time in my life when I had to make a decision, and that decision was to chase this dream professionally with a good mindset. There are a few mistakes I’ve made in my life and decisions in my life where I could have wound up here, or I very well could have wound up in jail.” He concluded, “It’s almost like a blessing and a curse because we put so much on ourselves. And I relate to him, and he relates to me, and we’re so opposite; you’ve got the cowboy hat and the face tattoos… I think it’s a very opposite attraction kind of thing. The respect is mutual and real recognizes real.”
