What Jelly Roll, Ashley McBryde hosting CMA Fest says about its next 50 years
Though schedules don't say it, the next half-century of CMA Fest kicks off at Nissan Stadium on June 6.
The four nights of festivities will be hosted by a man saved from himself and a woman well along the path away from a road going nowhere.
Yes, "Save Me" performer Jelly Roll and "Girl Going Nowhere" singer Ashley McBryde will be two of the most notable faces associated with the CMA Fest's headline events.
“CMA Fest” will air June 25 at 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT on ABC and will stream the next day on Hulu.
The Country Music Association and overall country music industry choosing to embrace, in a much larger sense, the pair of charismatic, heavily tattooed artists — one a formerly incarcerated native of Nashville's blue-collar Antioch neighborhood and the other a hard-working native of rural Mammoth Spring, Arkansas — speaks volumes.
Country's evolution hits another level
For many in America's mainstream, 2024's CMA Fest nighttime events and ABC special will represent the first moment they'll be forced to pay attention to country music beyond Luke Bryan shaking it for country girls, Chris Stapleton drinking Tennessee whiskey or Carrie Underwood taking a Louisville slugger to both headlights.
This is because a movement has gained significant steam and is now worthy of country music's brightest spotlight.
In under five years, veteran performer Jelly Roll has evolved into a two-time Country Music Association award-winning and Grammy-nominated artist. When 2024 closes, he'll also be responsible for selling nearly one million tickets as a nationwide headliner.
McBryde is a critically acclaimed Grammy-winning performer. Plus, she's a recent Grand Ole Opry cast inductee who, when she last headlined the Ryman Auditorium, received 13 standing ovations for the performance of her honest, rootsy and whimsical "Lindeville" album.
One of the album's most beloved songs is the pro-cheating anthem "Brenda Put Your Bra On."
The voyeuristic ode hits differently than taking out a headlight.
Notably, McBryde also has a fanbase heavy on roots-driven people whose small-town values fearlessly embrace drag queens and socially conservative bar dwellers.
McBryde noted in a 2023 Tennessean feature that these people love "drinking wine and talking s***." Also, according to a popular single from her latest album, "The Devil I Know," they occasionally keep a light on in the kitchen for their kids to return home to at night.
The value apparent in split demographics
Jelly Roll and McBryde's moment in the spotlight also highlights a strategy by the Country Music Association to embrace what the association's CEO Sarah Trahern, in 2022, called the genre's "biggest tent" of fans.
Just a decade prior, in 2011, survey data showed that the average country music fan was a near 50-year-old homeowner earning nearly $100,000 a year.
2011 is crucial because it was half a decade before the surge of streaming portals appealing to existing and emerging country music fans.
According to 2023 Luminate data, one of the fastest-growing fanbases in music are now aged 35-44 and streaming country.
A balance has emerged between the genre's listeners responsible for CMA Fest hitting nearly 100,000 attendees and fans of acts like Jelly Roll and McBryde intent on maintaining that growth for years to come.
Via 2024's CMA Fest presentation, a novel solution has arrived for a great problem.
At CMA Fest 2024, it's not just Jelly Roll and McBryde, or even Bryan, who are represented for each of these demographics. CMA Entertainers of the Year from 2023 (Lainey Wilson) and 2005 (Keith Urban), a country and rock chart-topper in HARDY, plus 2004 "Redneck Woman" chart-topper Gretchen Wilson will be there.
Dig even deeper and Tanner Adell and Shaboozey, a duo of social media and streaming favorites with recent Beyoncé "Cowboy Carter" album credits, join country traditionalists like sister trio Chapel Hart and Zach Top. The latter tandem's work feels more synonymous with CMA Fest as Fan Fair at the Nashville Fairgrounds in 1994 than anything from the present day.
Jelly Roll returns to Antioch
Life wasn't always like this for Jason "Jelly Roll" Deford.
Twenty miles south of Nissan Stadium is Jelly Roll's home area of Antioch.
It was there, in the ninth grade at age 14, that he was arrested in front of Antioch High School.
He entered jail 40 more times after quitting the ninth grade and being told that under no circumstances was he ever to be allowed to return to his school.
One of the facilities where he was held was the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center. While performing at Nissan Stadium at CMA Fest in 2023, he noted the center was right next to the stadium's Parking Lot P.
He's recalling all of these stories after being invited by the CMA Foundation and Save the Music Foundation to humbly return to Antioch High and invite the school marching band to play at CMA Fest. He also donated nearly $100,000 to fund music education in Nashville's public school system.
The moment was accompanied by an hourlong pep rally that transformed him from a rapper-turned-singer into a prodigal son returning home to perform a mini-concert in front of thousands of teenagers.
However, beforehand, something more telling occurred.
There he was, sitting in a music room, intently listening to a trio of Hispanic students playing a ballad on guitars. They were nervous, and he smiled with encouragement.
He offered advice, and the trio breathed a sigh of relief. Then, they engaged in deep conversation as if Jelly Roll was their new best friend.
In a 2023 ABC documentary, Jelly Roll said his career was at a bittersweet nexus where "almost perfect comes around all the time but perfect never does."
A year later, because he now has the resources to ensure that a 14-year-old who could get arrested in front of Antioch High School has a way out of trouble, he's slightly more comfortable with his position in life.
The universal truth of Ashley McBryde's 'Bible and a .44'
The best place to understand the power of Ashley McBryde's moment as a CMA Fest evening event host was as memories flooded her thoughts during a backstage news conference before her 2022 induction as a Grand Ole Opry cast member.
In 2016, she was a diligent and well-respected singer-songwriter a decade into working in a "10-year town." She was also a fan of '90s-era country tomboys like Terri Clark but had straightened her hair and altered her appearance to curry mainstream favor for her debut EP, "Jalopies & Expensive Guitars."
That release led to her being championed by Eric Church, who invited her onstage in Chicago to sing its track "Bible and a .44." The song is a touching ode to her father that centers on a Remington Magnum gun, the Holy Bible and a Martin D-35S guitar forming her core childhood memories.
Her breakout song "Girl Going Nowhere" came from a songwriting session that followed her breakout.
On that day, acclaimed, Texas-born singer-songwriter Guy Clark died.
Her songwriting partner that day, Jeremy Bussey, advised McBryde that they should "write the song you'll sing for your Opry debut — and in such a way that if Guy Clark had to listen to it, he wouldn't hate it."
That tune later became "Girl Goin' Nowhere."
In an era where anything can be considered "country," McBryde is inclusive of "everything" yet remains tethered to the genre's roots.
McBryde said at her Opry induction that she took her responsibilities "seriously" applied to more than the unbroken wood circle front and center of the legendary venue's stage.
A simple quote Jelly Roll uttered while speaking at his high school pep rally ties together his and McBryde's multitude of moments leading to CMA Fest 2024.
"Now that I'm here, I'll be back again."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: CMA Fest: Hosts Jelly Roll, Ashley McBryde show festival's evolution
