Sebastopol, TX · country

Cody Johnson

3 festivals played ↓

Texas rodeo-cowboy-turned-arena-headliner — neotraditional country sung like every night is the last night of the season.

Cody Johnson was born in 1987 and raised in Sebastopol, Texas, where his father, Carl, taught him guitar starting with the gospel song 'I'll Fly Away.' As a teenager he rode bulls at local rodeos and worked alongside his father in the Texas prison system, jobs that shaped the cowboy imagery running through his songs.

At nineteen, the prison warden urged him to commit to music full time. He formed the Cody Johnson Band in 2006 with his father and drummer Nathan Reedy, releasing the self-financed Black and White Label the same year. The lineup shifted over the following years, adding and losing guitarists, a bassist and two different fiddle players.

He self-released six albums before signing to a major label, including Gotta Be Me, which reached number two on Billboard's Country Albums chart. His 2011 record A Different Day, produced by Trent Willmon, won him a Texas Regional Music Award for New Male Vocalist, after which he left the prison job for good.

His major-label debut, Ain't Nothin' to It, came out in January 2019, followed by Human: The Double Album in 2021. He sits on the traditional side of contemporary country, drawing on George Strait and Willie Nelson, with fiddle and steel guitar prominent and a full-throated, unhurried vocal delivery.

'Til You Can't' won two Country Music Association Awards in 2022, and his album Leather was named CMA Album of the Year in 2024. He toured Australia in both 2023 and 2025, with many shows selling out, and has moved from independent dance-hall gigs to arena-scale headlining shows.

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country