As a camera peered backstage prior to a commercial break during the season premiere of the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live,” audiences were presented a glimpse of Jelly Roll getting ready for his close-up. After catching sight of the welcomed intrusion, the singer — a mountain-sized man with a face sporting a scrapbook of tattoos — flashed an equally mammoth smile and formed the familiar heart image with his hands.
Initial appearances can indeed mislead. A seemingly threatening physical presence with a personal past troubled enough to make good on such an image, Jelly Roll was offering a welcome sign, a disarmament of sorts, to unfamiliar viewers at home.
Audiences that had flocked to the singer’s music over the two previous years — fanbases dominated by, but not limited to, country audiences — already knew the stories of salvation that stood at the heart of his songs. That helps explain why Jelly Roll has become one of the biggest — though perhaps most unexpected — success stories out of Nashville in recent years. But here, he stood before a massive live national audience that couldn’t help but include listeners who were either skeptical of his seemingly immediate popularity or unaware of it altogether.