If anyone knows what a difference a year makes, it’s Jelly Roll. The Nashville native debuted his “Save Me” collaboration with Lainey Wilson at the 2023 ACM Awards, unaware at the time how much that one performance would change, quite literally, everything for him and his career.
Now, Jelly Roll is nominated for the first time, with a total of four nominations, including for the night’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year.
“Last year I was here, barely,” Jelly Roll reflects to Country Now. “I had no nominations. So it’s really, really cool. I think it’s also perspective…it’s my first time being nominated for an ACM, ever. So I think it also reminds people of just how relatively new I still am to the scene,”
Jelly Roll is debuting a new song on this year’s ACM Awards stage, although he admits it will be hard to top the experience he had one year ago.
“I don’t want to get emotional talking about this, but ‘Save Me,’ me and Lainey debuted it here last year,” Jelly Roll says. “It went on to be a No. 1 record. It’s a triple platinum, I mean, it’s huge. [It] changed my life in every way.
“It was a big part of the Whitsitt Chapel era of that album and then we kind of get to debut another new song here. So it’s cool. It feels like it’s turning into, I hope, a cycle. Maybe I debut a song every ACM.”
Whitsitt Chapel came out last June, but Jelly Roll already has his sights set on new music, and a lot of it.
“I’ve got a lot of songs, but I’m not sure how I’m going to release, so I’m still figuring it out,” Jelly Roll hints. “I’m like a kid that’s got a bunch of candy and don’t know where to start.”
No one was more surprised than Jelly Roll when he found out he was nominated for four ACM Awards, including Entertainer of the Year
“I didn’t expect to get this many,” Jelly Roll recently told People. “Even when I had a shelf built, I had it built for what I won last year thinking that was probably the best year of my life. I don’t know what to do about this thing still running.”
“Not every awards show in America’s giving an opportunity to the guy that’s talking against fentanyl and representing the people I speak about,” he continued. “And to see four nominations just showed me how much my peers and the industry cares about what I think, even my core messages outside of the music.”
Jelly Roll will embark on his Beautifully Broken Tour in August, with Warren Zeiders and Alexandra Kay serving as his opening acts. Find all of Jelly Roll’s music and tour dates at JellyRoll615.com.
The ACM Awards will air live on Thursday, May 16, from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. The ceremony will stream live exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. A membership is not required to watch the ceremony. More information is available at ACMCountry.com.
