Beautifully broken

Instead, it begins Beautifully broken at rock bottom — sweating in the church basement with his hands shaking, wishing he was anywhere else. “I haven't touched a drop in seven hours, three minutes/Just sober, I already wanna quit,” he sings on “Winning Streak,” embarrassed to admit his failures to a room of strangers until he meets a 20-year-old man . years clean. It's shocking writing, despite some clichés. Then the chorus hits — a clapping/gospel moment that means “triumph over adversity” with flashing neon lights. Same deal with “Heart of Stone,” a desperate singalong (“Dear Lord, can you help me? I've fallen from grace/Crawling back to heaven from this hell on earth I've made”) given the full Imagine Dragons treatment. There are no shortage of large gatherings andoh-oh-oh-oh“s, and although Jelly once declared his sound to be “somewhere between Hank, Three 6 and Kid Rock”, here it's closer to a cross between Twenty One Pilots and Gnarls Barkley.

It's been said that the experience of a Jelly Roll concert is something of a evangelical revival, but his frequent invocation of heaven, hell and fallen angels is not out of place in mainstream rap and R&B, where haunted young bluesmen have debated. their demons to a degree of commercial success that is almost alarming. Themes of trauma and addiction saturate the charts as pain rap luminaries release essentially the same record over and over again. Surely someone somewhere—perhaps millions of people—needs to hear Jelly Roll sing, “I'm not okay, but it's all gonna be alright” over steel and play on lead single “I Am Not Okay,” which made the In Memoriam soundtrack part of this year's Emmy Awards. Yet a monstrous question looms: Is it too much to wonder that the music meant to save America's broken heart is also good?

But then there's “Hear Me Out,” which opens with a missed call from a friend. The guy has been in and out of rehab and Jelly hasn't seen much of him since his mother died. It's late, but Jelly calls anyway. “Listen to me,” pleads the friend. “Tell me how I always feel like something's missing/I'd make a sound but what's the point if no one hears me?” Herein lies the heart of Jelly Roll's creative mission: to give a voice, a soundtrack, and a small collection to Americans so often ignored by our cultural institutions and our governing bodies. His efforts go far beyond the realm of music: In January, he sat before a Senate committee to testify about sanctions to stop the fentanyl supply chain. “I understand the paradox of my history as a drug dealer,” he said. “But I think that's what makes me perfect to talk about it. I was part of the problem. I'm here now as a person who wants to be part of the solution.”

There is a nuance to this speech, clear as it is, this one Beautifully broken begs for more. (It's there on “My Cross,” an ode to his daughter: “Your blood is my blood, and the poison runs deep/Knowing you're mine scares the hell out of me.”) Clearly Jelly Roll has stories, of the genre Small details create timeless country classics like Haggard's “If We Make It Through December,” in which a laid-off factory worker builds a castle in the sky, or Kris Kristofferson's “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” whose complicated poet cannot understand. in his own way. As for now, he has the voice, passion and charisma required of an American folk hero. Now all it needs are the songs.