Jelly Roll's 'Son of a Sinner' tops charts, offers Nashville natives unprecedented stardom

On Wednesday evening, Nashville native Jelly Roll (alongside fellow songwriters David Ray Stevens and ERNEST, plus producer Ilya Toshinsky) celebrated the impressive eight-month rise of the emotive, heart-wrenching ballad "Son Of A Sinner" -- his first Billboard Country Airplay and Mediabase Country Aircheck chart-topper -- at Broadcast Music Inc.'s (BMI) Music Row offices.

Aside from cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, the event was able to induce, depending on perspectives, a sudden shock or gentle smile, given evolutionary shifts that success being achieved by native Nashville artists, including Jelly Roll and ERNEST, is having on mainstream country music's ever-broadening cultural expectation.

Every artist, engineer, label executive, songwriter and producer in the room could have left the festivities with a tattoo from, yes, the actual tattoo station set up in the back of BMI's front lobby. Or, they could've aspired to wear diamond-encrusted chains with Jelly Roll's logo and bearing the name of the hit song in question (as Jelly Roll, ERNEST and Stevens wore).

However, generally appreciating hip-hop and soul's influence on traditional country stylings erring not too far away from Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's 1970s hits -- more than anything else -- would be the most appreciated course of action.

Impressively, more telling than the circus of entertainment surrounding the song's writers receiving guitars and plaques for their work was the press conference held in a conference room in a ground floor conference room at BMI beforehand.

If wanting a bird's eye view into a looser, wilder and unspoken-for side of Nashville's singer-songwriter scene, ERNEST, Jelly Roll and Stevens happily obliged.

"This song comes from home -- but none of us ever thought we'd be here," Jelly Roll offered.

To wit, Jelly Roll's friend, frequent collaborator, and area native Struggle Jennings -- who appeared onstage during his sold-out December concert at the Bridgestone Arena and proclaimed the performer "the biggest [local-to-global] success story in Nashville, Tennessee's history" -- recalled that once released from incarceration, he slept on his couch for the better part of four years while attempting to put together the rap career that would provide for his family and in many ways, save his life.

"The dream of having a No. 1 hit was so far out of our reach," offered Jelly Roll. "If you told me that when I met ERNEST a decade ago, and he was a rapper named Snow, he'd be one of the best songwriters in country music and able to produce ["Son of a Sinner"], I'd have laughed. Or, I could never imagine David finding his way out of an East Nashville trailer park. Heck I can assure you that nobody would've even thought that I'd be alive."

The story of lives being resurrected, careers being built and organic suburban Nashville culture impacting Music Row begins best in January 2009 in a Nashville recording studio.

Then 24 years old and the father of a then newborn daughter and freshly released from multiple stints during a drug-addicted and law-breaking youth in Davidson County's juvenile detention centers and corrections facilities, Jason Deford -- who, aside from earning his GED, passed the time during his incarceration by developing into a talented freestyle rapper -- rapped over a looped beat for somewhere in the vicinity of ten minutes.

In said freestyle, he discusses many tales -- many of which are potentially incriminating and unprintable in The Tennessean. However, he also notes that he's focused on becoming a musical artist capable of selling 100,000 independently-pressed CDs.

13 years later, Deford and Stevens (who was present for the previously mentioned freestyle and has known the rapper-turned-singer for two decades) were holed up in a marathon writing session at Sound Emporium Studios as Jelly Roll -- now 23 albums, EPs, or mixtapes into a decade-long and nationally-respected independent music career -- was preparing to release "Ballads Of The Broken," his first major label-distributed release, via Nashville's BBR Music Group.

ERNEST refers to his songwriting contribution as he was waiting for an order of spare ribs for his wife Delaney from Martin's Barbecue in Southwest Nashville and deciding to drive by Sound Emporium for 45 minutes to implore Jelly Roll and Stevens to indulge his desire to smoke marijuana briefly together as "divine intervention."

"I was in a condition where I should not have been able to co-write a hit song," says Jelly Roll. But, fascinatingly, ERNEST adds that writing a hit song in said condition precluded the typical overthinking that goes into the "freestyle" style he uses in writing most of his now eight No. 1 hit country singles.

"Being so loose with [the composition] allowed the song to be an open vessel to the idea. The best songs I've written tend to 'write themselves' in some ways."

Regarding ERNEST, Jelly Roll believes that his conscious decision to remain tethered to his Nashville roots while becoming a Big Loud Records-signed and globally-respected pop-country singer-songwriter is an intrinsic part of why "Son of A Sinner" exists.

"If you want to go far, go together; if you want to go fast, go alone," says Jelly Roll. The "fast" puzzle piece is ERNEST's 2021 and 2022 breakout success blending with his learned musicality as a radio-friendly producer and songwriter. The "far together" part introduces Nashville's hip-hop community to mainstream country's culture. Finally, a Nashville native was willing to reach back to himself and Stevens, a gifted veteran songwriter unfamiliar with Music Row's insular writing community.

It proves true an adage that stuck with Jelly Roll as he waited in the wings of the Nashville Predators locker room before taking the stage at the Bridgestone Arena.

"Culture breeds positive results."

Though quiet and reserved, Stevens adds, "[BMI Creative Executive Director, Antioch native, actor and Fisk Jubilee Singers producer] Shannon Sanders once explained to me that there's a difference between your turn and your time. My life has taken plenty of turns, but my time has arrived."

"It was the least [modern traditional] Nashville songwriting session ever," Jelly Roll adds with a laugh. "There were no schedules. It came in the middle of what ended up being a wild night where we were up until 2 a.m. in the moning. Some of us may have also been drinking and others were worse for wear. It was different, for sure."

Via a recent appearance on the Nashville-baseD and nationally syndicated Big D and Bubba Radio Show, Jelly Roll adds an allegory intrinsic to why he feels "Son Of A Sinner" and his career has excelled.

"You know there's a lot of guys on Nashville that were part of the Build-A-Bear program. Let's be honest. There are a lot of Build-A-Bears here. You know, the label comes in, finds a bear, puts pants on the bear, gives bear microphone, gives bear guitar, hands bear song, gives bear voice lessons, puts bear on stage, gives bear country radio single."

"'Son Of A Sinner' -- and everything I'm doing -- are many things, but it damned sure isn't that," Jelly Roll adds in an allusion to that interview.

"I used to be afraid to dream. But now that I've achieved hitting the top of the charts, I dream beyond measure," the unexpected country radio chart-topper continues.

"My career is now about using my dreams to help as many people as possible in my community and family. I could've been so much further along in life if someone had instilled the desire to dream in me when I was younger. As much as I'm trying to help at-risk youth, I'm trying to be a better family member and more forgiving to people [who may have wronged me in the past]. This moment in my life has changed my spirituality for the better.

Moreover, in the next year, he aspires to be an Academy of Country Music Award, Country Music Association and Grammy-nominated artist who has raised $1 million more for at-risk youth -- on top of the roughly $300,000 in gate receipts from his Bridgestone Arena concert that he's already donated to Impact Youth Outreach for a recording studio inside Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center, plus five $10,000 scholarships for graduating seniors in Davidson Country and holiday season food and toy drives.

"Fans cling to Jelly Roll's words in a manner unlike anything I've ever seen," says ERNEST. "Country music fans who were not already fans of his are now experiencing the same sort of impact that he has on his fanbase." Stevens adds that it's a "blessing" to watch Jelly Roll's evolution.

Moved to tears while speaking, Jelly Roll adds a final point.

"If God's gonna let me be responsible for telling [my fanbase's] story to the greatest amount of people who have ever heard it, then I'm gonna tell the s**t out of that story."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Jelly Roll's 'Son of a Sinner' tops charts, offers Nashville natives unprecedented stardom