ON THE COVER:
CODY JOHNSON

Warner Music Nashville’s Cody Johnson is a country star in the classic mold and leads the charge for the freshly retooled label’s co-chiefs, Ben Kline and Cris Lacy. CoJo, whose photo on the cover of this issue highlights his rural bona fides, is nearing 900k in activity for his Human: The Double Album, streams like gangbusters and is selling mountains of tickets. So he might be wondering why he’s appearing on the cover of a publication that’s most often described as “horse puckey.”