Songfacts®:

• Jason DeFord is a singer/rapper who records under the name of Jelly Roll. Born and raised in Nashville's Antioch neighborhood, the former addict and drug dealer began rapping around 2005. He first achieved notoriety when his 2010 collaboration, "Pop Another Pill" with Memphis rapper Lil Wyte, reached over 6.3 million YouTube views.
  
  Jelly Roll has worked with multiple labels, but his career only really took off after he signed to BBR Music group. His 2020 single "Save Me" - a confessional, vulnerable expression of self-doubt - earned a Gold certification from the RIAA, and its follow-up, "Dead Man Walking," topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. "Son of a Sinner," Jelly Roll's first song sent to country radio, gave him his first Hot 100 hit.
• During the country-rock-leaning track, Jelly Roll reflects on his edgy lifestyle as the "long-haired son of a sinner." The Antioch native describes his emotional battle as he wrestles with God's judgment, fighting his urge to drink, smoke and pop pills.
• Jelly Roll wrote "Son Of A Sinner" during a songwriting session at Nashville's Sound Emporium with frequent co-worker David Ray. When Nashville singer-songwriter and Morgan Wallen collaborator Ernest K. Smith popped into the studio while picking up a barbecue dinner with his wife, Ray loaned Smith his guitar.
  
  "I came in half-buzzed, my shirt was unbuttoned, sat down, picked up a guitar, they put a VoiceNote on, and I kind of spit out that chorus," Smith recalled to Billboard. "We messed around with a verse for like 20 minutes, and then I left."
  
  "When Ernest was finished and handed me my guitar back," Ray added. "He was like, 'I don't know where that came from, but I'm glad they sent it to us.' He just kind of looked at it like something from above entered the room and made that spill out."
• After Smith left, Jelly Roll and Ray built verses around Smith's cry from the soul. They came up with two verses and a bridge where Jelly Roll confesses to succumbing to temptation and his need for God's saving grace. "There are points in the song where it becomes extremely autobiographical," said Jelly Roll. "Some music's meant to be heard, and some music is meant to be felt. Personally, I try to make the kind of music that's meant to be felt."
• Jelly Roll asked Ernest to produce the track, who then enlisted guitarist Ilya Toshinsky to help with the process. Toshinsky in turn recruited drummer Shannon Forrest and bassist Craig Young to help him lay the track down. "Craig literally got hospitalized right after we cut this song," recalled Toshinsky. "He was complaining of stomach pain. He thought he would be fine, but as the last chord was ringing out, he was leaving to go check himself into the ER. Two days later, he got diagnosed for COVID-19. He had a horrible couple of weeks there, but Craig, he's so expressive on the bass."
• Jelly Roll won Male Video of the Year, Breakthrough Male Video of the Year and CMT Digital-First Performance of the Year for "Son of a Sinner" at the 2023 CMT Music Awards. "It may have looked like it was only 30 yards, but it took me 39 years to walk from over there to right here," Jelly Roll said upon accepting his Male Video of the Year trophy.