Cody Johnson

One Liner: The biggest star in new-breed Texas country

Wikipedia Genre: Country, country rock
Home: Huntsville, Texas

Saturday

Thoughts: Weird to see this name at the top of this poster - never heard of him.  Likely says more about me than it does him, because if he is as big as Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan, and Turnpike, then I am obviously the one who is missing the boat.  Although, in my defense, if I search for "Cody" in Spotify, the first result is something called Cody Jinks, not this dude.

He was born and raised in Sebastopol, Texas, which is in the Lufkin/Huntsville area down towards Houston.  I'm pretty sure there is something with that name in Seguin, but I hadn't heard of the town before.  Likely because it has 120 people.  And two Dollar General stores (according to Wikipedia).  Which is freaking weird.  Huh, yes, there is a Sebastopol House Historic Site in Seguin.  Learn something new every day!

When he got started, he was riding bulls and working in a prison in Huntsville.  He self-released his first six albums, before signing with Warner Brothers (and when he did that, he was big enough to keep creative control and his publishing and masters. Which is freaking smart).  At first, he was the Cody Johnson Band, which included his father, who had taught him to play.  His dad quit pretty quickly, but the band started getting noticed and climbing up the Texas music charts.  Once they got big enough, Cody was able to quit his job with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and go for music full-time.  Around that time, they changed the band name (tragically, in my opinion) to the Rockin' CLBs (which is justa shit name).  By the time his sixth album was released, he was selling real numbers and that disc went up to #2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart.  Around then - 2018 - he blew up in a major way, becoming the first ever independent artist to sell out a show at the Houston Rodeo.  Now he's big enough to have a nickname - CoJo.  His people are the CoJo Nation.

I think this musical style paragraph in his Wikipedia is interesting.  "Cody Johnson’s music is classified as contemporary country, neo-traditionalist country, or Cowboy. Marcus Dowling of CMT has stated that many view Johnson as a leader within the “back to country” movement in the industry. In an interview with Brett Callwood, Johnson has described his music as drawing on multiple genres: “I’m not sure if you’d call me Texas or red dirt or mainstream or outlaw. I just always say that I’m me. I sound like what I sound like, and I’m not trying to be anything that I’m not.”"  A Texas Monthly article says that people have been calling him the new George Strait, which sounds like blasphemy to me.  He's got a good voice and all that, but the King?  C'mon.  But I'll say that he sounds like a real one in that interview with Andy Langer.  I like his attitude.

Too much talking about the guy here - let's get in to some tunes.  Eight albums so far.  2006's Black and White Label (which is listed as 2011 on Spotify for some reason), 2009's Six Strings One Dream, 2011's A Different Day, 2014's Cowboy Like Me, 2016's Gotta Be Me (and by the way, his look on the front of these albums, at this time, is extremely clean cut and generic cowboy), 2019's Ain't Nothin' to It, 2021's Human The Double Album, and 2023's Leather.  You can absolutely hear a change in the music from those first albums to the newer stuff.  His voice has gained some polish and his sound is cleaner.

The biggest song from those early albums is from the third, A Different Day, which has "Diamond in My Pocket" on it, with 141.6 million streams.

See, look at that photo!  Nice straw hat, big old belt buckle, zero tattoos to be seen.  That cover absolutely looks like a self-released CD cover that you would buy after you happened to see him open for someone else at Gruene Hall and kinda drunkenly enjoyed, and then the disc would bounce around in the back of your car for a few years.  But yes, a very traditional country song sound right there.

The next album, 2014's Cowboy Like Me, has one of his most popular tunes, "Me and My Kind," with 164 million streams and the kind of chorus a bunch of good-ol-boys would love to yell out.

Heavy on the accented singing right there, like really drawling out those words.  This definitely sounds like something written in a lab in Nashville for George Strait to use.  2016's Gotta Be Me boasted two big hits - "Wild as You" (87 million) and "With You I Am" (125 million), and 2019's Ain't Nothin' To It had "On My Way To You" with 108 million.  The annoyingly named Human The Double Album has the next monster one, with "'Til You Can't" breaking the 200 million mark at 211.5 million streams.

This is what a lot of these tunes sound like to me - a powerful and aspirational message to be a better person or a better spouse or whatever.  So, the schmaltz is heavy on this one, but nonetheless, it's an entirely true sentiment that makes me want to call my parents right now and then leave work to take my kids out of school and then take the whole family somewhere for the night.  I really like it.  Cheese be damned, that is a good song.

Finally, he just released Leather, literally three days ago when I started writing this post.  So, the stream counts aren't quite there yet, but a few of the songs have jumped a few million in the last three days.  Which is impressive.  "That's Texas" is one where part of me wants to dislike it because there are already so many of those pandering ass songs trying to list Texas-y things, but it is actually pretty damn fun.  "Work Boots" is good.  He even has Brooks and Dunn on a track!  One thing that I noticed here that truly differentiates him from some of the older classic stuff like George or Garth are the tough guy elements.  Strait would never have sung a song like "Jesus Loves You" with a line like "The Good Lord was lookin' after you, 'cause my gun was in my truck" or "if you come near me and mine again, you're gonna meet him face to face."  That sort of performative schlock is just more poison in people's ears about how to solve a problem, and I hate it.  He also devolves into some of those Nashvillian tropes at times - girl in her bare feet ridin' along in my truck down them county roads, etc.  But, I'm not as mad at that.  "Dirt Cheap" is a legitimately good song.  A little schmaltzy and lays that on a little thick, but I love the message of it, and it's done well.  "The Painter" must have been the early single, because it had big stream numbers before the album was even released.  26.7 million.

More schmaltz, but another good song.  Nothing wrong with a well-done love song.

He has a 2022 live album called Cody Johnson & The Rockin' CJB Live, which is very instructive.  Dude sounds like a bona fide star on that album.  The crowd is loud and knows all the words.  He is singing the songs cleanly and well, and yet also hollering at the crowd and playing along with them like Garth at his apex.  When he does the band intros, and they each jam a solo, it includes a little Rush, and I am extremely here for it.  He also gives a wild speech in here about how he had to have major surgery to repair his back, when he was having excruciating pain in his right arm and the potential to lose the use of his right arm entirely.  Which is insane.  

I started this post with skepticism and an expectation that this was going to be bad, but honestly, I get why he's so big.  Great voice.  Killer band.  Not afraid to throw down either a party anthem or a love song.  Some legitimately good lyrics in here.  I dig it.