Jelly Roll prides himself on being a hard worker who will do things nobody else in Nashville will do. Well … almost nobody.

I recently spoke to him, and we were talking about his Lainey Wilson duet, “Save Me.” I asked him what it says about country music that he and Wilson — both new artists — are sitting on top of the game right now.

• “Save Me” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart in December.
• Wilson won Entertainer of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards, and Jelly Roll took New Artist.
• Per country chart expert Chris Owen, his next radio single will be “Halfway to Hell.”

“First of all, let’s start with praising Lainey, man. I pride myself on being a really hard worker,” Jelly Roll begins. “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 that I won’t do. She is willing. She is working.”

This became obvious when the two crossed paths on the set of American Idol in January.

“When I seen her, I could tell she was a little frazzled. I said, ‘You okay?'” he remembers. “She’d just pulled up, she was running late. She was like, ‘Man, I had to wake up at 5 o’clock this morning to catch a flight, and had a layover at such and such for five hours. I leave here and I got a 4AM flight tomorrow to do a corporate show at three in the afternoon, then I gotta fly to another city to do Luke Combs.'”

“These were commercial flights,” Jelly Roll adds. “This girl was running on fumes. Her work ethic is next level.”