Joe Diffie American country singer Date of Birth: 28.12.1958 Country: USA

Content:

1. Joe Diffie's Country Music Career
2. Musical Beginnings
3. Epic Records and Chart Success
4. Writing and Collaborations
5. Musical Style
6. Personal Life and Death

Joe Diffie's Country Music Career

Early Life

Joe Diffie was born into a musical family in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1958. His first musical performance came at age 14 when he played in his aunt Down Anita's country band. Diffie's father, Joe R., played guitar and banjo, while his mother sang. Following in his mother's footsteps, Diffie began singing at an early age, often listening to albums from his father's record collection. Diffie said that his "mom and dad claimed I could sing harmony when I was three." His family moved to San Antonio, Texas when he was in first grade, and then Washington, D.C. where he attended fourth and fifth grades. He later moved to Wisconsin for his sixth grade through sophomore years in high school, returning to Oklahoma where he finished high school in Velma.

In his final two years of high school, Diffie played football, baseball, and golf in addition to running track; he was named the All-Around Athlete of the Year as a senior. After graduating, he attended Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. Though he initially earned credits toward medical school, he dropped the medical profession after marrying for the first time in 1977 and eventually left school short of graduation.

Musical Beginnings

Diffie initially worked on oil rigs and then drove a truck that pumped cement on an oil field in Alice, Texas before returning to Duncan to work in the foundry. During this time, he performed on the side as a musician, first in a gospel group called Higher Purpose and then in a honky tonk group called Special Edition. Diffie then built a recording studio, began touring with Special Edition in neighboring states, and sent demo tapes to publishers in Nashville. Hank Thompson recorded Diffie's "Love on the Rocks," and Randy Travis put a hold on one of Diffie's songs but ultimately did not record it.

After the foundry closed in 1986, Diffie filed for bankruptcy and sold his studio due to financial necessity. He also divorced his wife, who kept their two children. Diffie spent several months in a state of depression before deciding to move to Nashville, Tennessee. There, he got a job at the Gibson Guitar Corporation. While at Gibson, he connected with songwriters and recorded more demos, including songs that would later be recorded by Ricky Van Shelton, Billy Dean, Alabama, and the Forester Sisters. By mid-1989, he had quit his day job to write demos full-time. Diffie also met Debbie, who would later become his second wife.

That same year, Diffie was contacted by Bob Montgomery, a songwriter and record producer known for his work with Buddy Holly. Montgomery, who was then vice president of A&R at Epic Records, said that he wanted to sign Diffie to a record deal but had to put the singer "on hold" for a year. In the meantime, Holly Dunn released "There Goes My Heart Again," which Diffie co-wrote and sang backing vocals on. After the success of that song, Diffie was signed to Epic in early 1990.

Epic Records and Chart Success

Diffie recorded seven studio albums, a Christmas album, and a greatest-hits package on the Epic label. He also released one studio album each on Monument Records, Broken Bow Records, and Rounder Records. Of his albums, 1993's "Honky Tonk Attitude" and 1994's "Third Rock from the Sun" went platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, while 1992's "Regular Joe" and 1995's "Life's So Funny" were both certified gold. His album "Homecoming: The Bluegrass Album" was released in late 2010 on the Rounder label.

Diffie charted 35 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart between 1990 and 2004, five of which reached the number-one spot: his debut release "Home," "If the Devil Danced (in Empty Pockets)," "Third Rock from the Sun," "Pickup Man" (his longest-running number-one single, at four weeks), and "Bigger Than the Beatles." In addition to those singles, he had 12 others that reached the top 10, and another 10 that reached the top 40 on the same chart.

Writing and Collaborations

Diffie co-wrote singles for Holly Dunn, Tim McGraw, and Joe Diffie Messina, and recorded with Mary Chapin Carpenter, George Jones, and Marty Stuart.

Musical Style

Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote that Diffie "balanced his traditional sentiments with humorous novelties shaded with rock and rueful ballads." His early albums for Epic were largely composed of ballads, but beginning with "Honky Tonk Attitude," he began to include more up-tempo and novelty numbers.

Starting with "A Night to Remember," Diffie returned to a more ballad-oriented sound; Mike Kraski, then-senior vice president of sales at Sony Music Nashville, thought that on the albums prior to it Diffie had overemphasized his novelty songs. Alanna Nash frequently compared Diffie's voice to that of George Jones. In her review of "Thousand Winding Roads," she likened the album to Mark Chesnutt's debut "Too Cold at Home," saying, "While Chesnutt merely draws inspiration from Jones, Diffie mimics Jones' delivery... But now that he's recording his own records, [his vocal imitation] casts him in the light of a stylist with little style of his own." She felt that Diffie had begun to move away from his George Jones influence on "A Night to Remember."

William Ruhlmann wrote that Diffie "built a decade-plus career in country solely on his ability to come up with 'pitches'— ten good songs in a well-established style—to Nashville's 'Music Row' music publishers," and that he was "an adequate but unremarkable vocalist."

Personal Life and Death

Diffie was married three times. His first wife was Janice Parker, whom he married in college. The couple had two children, Parker and Kara, and divorced in 1986. Parker later served as Diffie's road manager in the mid-2000s, and Kara and he auditioned for "American Idol" in the mid-2010s.

Two years after his divorce from Janice, Diffie married Debbie Jones, a nurse. They had two sons, Drew and Tyler, the latter of whom was born with Down syndrome and nearly died in 1991 due to complications from a tonsillectomy. Diffie began an affair with Liz Allison, the widow of NASCAR driver Davey Allison, in 1993. In 1994, a judge ordered Diffie to pay Jones $3,000 per month pending an expected divorce and not to allow Drew and Tyler to be in the presence of any girlfriend. He divorced Jones in 1996.

In 2000, Diffie married Theresa (née Crump), whom he had met at a concert at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Hotel in Nashville. They had a daughter together in 2004.

From the early 1990s to the early 2000s, Diffie hosted a charity concert and golf tournament to benefit First Steps, a nonprofit organization that provides education for children with intellectual and physical disabilities. His contributions to the organization earned him a Humanitarian Award from the Country Music Association in 1997.

Diffie later became a country radio host himself, hosting a midday program for Tulsa radio station KXBL.

On March 27, 2020, Diffie announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019–20. Two days later, on March 29, he died in Nashville at age 61 from complications of the COVID-19 disease.

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