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Joe Diffie, Grammy-Winning Country Music Star, Dies at 61 Joe Diffie, Grammy-Winning Country Music Star, Dies at 61
(2 days later)
Joe Diffie, a country singer who had a string of hits in the 1990s with chart-topping ballads and honky-tonk singles like “Home” and “Pickup Man,” died on Sunday in Nashville. He was 61. Joe Diffie, who went from working in oil fields and foundries to becoming one of the most commercially successful country singers of the early and mid-1990s, died on Sunday in Nashville. He was 61.
He announced on Friday that he had contracted the coronavirus, becoming the first country star to go public with such a diagnosis. His publicist, Scott Adkins, confirmed his death. His death, from complications of the coronavirus, was announced by his publicist, Scott Adkins. Mr. Diffie had revealed on Friday that he was being treated for the condition.
Mr. Diffie was a member of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 25 years. His hits included “Honky Tonk Attitude,” “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die),” “Bigger Than the Beatles” and “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets).” At the dawn of the 1990s, country music was embarking upon a great, rollicking party period, and Mr. Diffie, with a touch of aw-shucks wryness to his performances and a robust head of blond hair that shot back from his head like wispy flames, was suited to the moment.
His mid-90s albums “Honky Tonk Attitude” and “Third Rock From the Sun” went platinum. Eighteen of Mr. Diffie’s singles landed in the Top 10 on the country charts, with five going No. 1. In his 2013 single “1994,” Jason Aldean name-checked the ’90s country mainstay. As a singer, he had a crisp, sentimental voice, which he deployed on ballads like “Is It Cold in Here” and “Home,” his debut single from 1990; it topped the Billboard country chart, the first of his five No. 1 country singles. He placed a dozen more songs in the country top 10.
Mr. Diffie shared a Grammy Award for best country collaboration for the song “Same Old Train,” with Merle Haggard, Marty Stuart and others. But he was also given to a playful, plucky rowdiness, and that animated his biggest hits. His third and fourth albums, which leaned heavily in this direction “Honky Tonk Attitude” (1993) and “Third Rock from the Sun” (1994) both went platinum. Two of his other albums went gold.
Joe Logan Diffie was born on Dec. 28, 1958, in Tulsa, Okla. “Pickup Man,” from 1994, was his most successful song, topping the Billboard country chart for four weeks. It was also the song that best took advantage of his various talents: On the one hand, it was a gently funny song about sexual attraction, but, on the other, it was also an emphatically boisterous statement of pride about boys and the trucks that boost their egos.
His last solo album was 2010’s “The Bluegrass Album: Homecoming.” When he sang “Pickup Man,” he alternated between plain and direct singing, humorously dipping and bending his syllables for emphasis.
“Joe was a real true honky-tonk hero to every country artist alive today,” the singer John Rich said in a statement. “No one sang our music better than he did.” “You can set my truck on fire and roll it down a hill/and I still wouldn’t trade it for a Coupe de Ville,” he sang, adding, “I met all my wives in traffic jams/There’s just something women like about a pickup man.”
The singer Deana Carter said she was “shell shocked” by the news and had hoped to perform again with Mr. Diffie this year. “He was a powerhouse that stopped people in their tracks, both on and offstage,” she said in a statement. The title track from “Third Rock From the Sun,” which went to No. 1, was a lighthearted catalog of rural misadventure. His 1995 Christmas album included a honky-tonk anthem, “Leroy the Redneck Reindeer.”
Mr. Diffie is survived by his wife, Tara Terpening Diffie, and seven children from four marriages. On “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)” the song’s video had a strong dose of “Weekend at Bernie’s”-like high jinks Mr. Diffie regarded death with an arched eyebrow and a shrug: “Just let my headstone be a neon sign/Just let it burn in memory of all of my good times.”
Joe Logan Diffie was born on Dec. 28, 1958, in Tulsa, Okla., to Joe and Flora Diffie. His father held various jobs and later drove a tour bus for the country superstar Toby Keith; his mother was a schoolteacher and owned a flower shop. His family moved frequently before settling back in Oklahoma, where Mr. Diffie attended high school and college. As a child, he played with his aunt’s country band, and later as part of rock, gospel and bluegrass outfits.
He began writing songs in the 1980s, and one of them, “Love on the Rocks,” was recorded by Hank Thompson. Soon, Mr. Diffie moved to Nashville, where he spent a few years writing songs and singing demos. After singing background on a Holly Dunn recording of one of his songs, he signed with Epic Records in 1990, and before long had his first No. 1 country hit.
Even in his performing era, Mr. Diffie continued writing songs, including ones recorded by Tim McGraw (“Memory Lane”) and Jo Dee Messina (“My Give a Damn’s Busted”). In 1998, Mr. Diffie won a Grammy for best country collaboration, with vocals for “Same Old Train,” a multistar collaboration.
He released albums throughout the 2000s and 2010s, and last year began hosting a radio show on KXBL, a country station in his native Tulsa.
Mr. Diffie is survived by his wife, Tara Terpening Diffie; his mother; two sisters, Meg Prestidge and Monica Stiles; four sons, Parker Diffie, Travis Humes, Drew Diffie and Tyler Diffie; three daughters, Kara Diffie, Kylie Diffie and Reaux Terpening; and four grandchildren. Mr. Diffie’s first three marriages ended in divorce.
The brand of power country that he found much success with has lately been experiencing a re-embrace. Last year, Mr. Diffie, along with Trace Adkins, appeared on “Redneck Tendencies,” a song by the young country singer Hardy, and in 2013 he recorded a duet with the Canadian country star Gord Bamford on “Country Junkie,” singing, “I don’t think they’ve got rehab for being a good ol’ boy.”
But the clearest mark of Mr. Diffie’s legacy came in 2013, when the country superstar Jason Aldean released a single called “1994,” which emphatically invokes Mr. Diffie’s work and influence, name-checking several Diffie songs in the lyrics.
In the video, one of the dancers wears a T-shirt that reads, “Teach Me How to Diffie,” a play on the “Teach Me How to Dougie” dance craze and a nod to how Mr. Diffie would awkwardly shimmy a bit onstage.
Throughout the video, there are clips of almost all the country stars of the 2010s — Luke Bryan, Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley, Florida Georgia Line and more — singing to the camera, “Joe, Joe, Joe Diffie!”
That refrain became the title of Mr. Diffie’s final album, released in 2019.