Jelly Roll Had Reservations About Dueting With Lainey Wilson
It’s true: Jelly Roll had reservations about dueting with Lainey Wilson. When Jelly Roll’s record label in Nashville suggested that he redo his song “Save Me” as a duet with labelmate and friend Lainey Wilson. Jelly admits that he wasn’t so sure it was a great idea.
At the number one party at a Music Row bar to celebrate the song’s success, as he stood next to Wilson, he told us, “‘Save Me’ was special to me. I don’t think people really grasp as an artist that sometimes songs mean so much to us to some degree we don’t really care what it does outside of that; it’s more about the actual art, like, ‘Man, this is special to me.'”
Why Jelly Roll Had Reservations About Dueting With Lainey Wilson
He continued, “So I was kind of anti-doing anybody on it, anyone. I was already like, ‘Yo, this is my story. This is my most vulnerable, most broken moment ever, and two hundred million people have now watched it on YouTube already; I don’t know if I want to go back to the well again.” But he relented, saying, “I knew that if I could do it with somebody in the country, it was Lainey. We were already good friends.”
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“Dollyish”
Jelly added of his duet partner and friend, “I know this is a rough comparison, but for kids like my daughter, she is going to be Dollyish. I know it’s a big shoe to fill, and it’s a little controversial to say, but you’ve got to understand that, to my daughter, Lebron James is the greatest basketball player ever; she never saw the Michael Jordan era in real time. So, I knew that about Lainey.”
Lainey Stepped To The Mic
He said of when Wilson stepped up to the mic in the studio to record his songs with him, “Man, even when she first started singing, I was vocal about it. I took Loba (record label president) to the side and said, ‘Loba, I love you, and I love her, but if this ain’t it, I don’t want any weird feelings.’ I walked in a skeptic that day and knew how great she was.”
Jelly explained, “She did her microphone check, and I watched my producer get goosebumps on his neck. And then I got ’em, and I said, ‘This is it.'”
Making Duets Harder
He even admitted that his next work might be more challenging after working with Wilson. He said, “I have a ballad on my new album, and we’ve been trying to find a partner for the new ballad. I told Lainey she’s made it impossible because I had the best partner you could have when it was time to show up.”
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