Joe Diffie, who had 'a voice as pure and rich and note-perfect as any baritone in Nashville,' dies at 61 of covid-19

Photo by Suzi Pratt, FilmMagic/Getty, via Rolling Stone

Country-music singer Joe Diffie, 61, announced Friday that he had covd-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. On Sunday, he was dead of complications from it.

Diffie "helped set the standard for upbeat, rock-influenced country music in the 1990's," Randy Speck writes on his Notorious Meddler blog from Albany, Ky., at the northeast corner of the Nashville TV market and home of Howard Perdew, who wrote or co-wrote three of Diffie's biggest hits: "Pickup Man," "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (if I Die)" and "So Help Me Girl."

Born in Tulsa, Diffie grew up in a musical family. He said "His parents claimed he could sing harmony when he was three years old," Speck reports. Perhaps the best appreciation of him was written by David Von Drehle of The Washington Post (which adds Spotify clips of Diffie's big hits):

Joe Diffie’s secret was a voice as pure and rich and note-perfect as any baritone in Nashville. A secret, because that wasn’t what country music fans wanted from him during his time at the top of the charts in the 1990s. They wanted a fellow with a friendly air, 30 extra beer pounds and a proud, bad mullet — Diffie rocked the worst/best mullet in the business. Diffie had, in other words, a “Honky Tonk Attitude,” to borrow a title and a vibe from one of his toe-tapping hits. He was a “Pickup Man” — that Middle American hero whose identity begins with his truck and goes from there. (Because you can’t have a tailgate without a truck.) Some Diffie hits, such as the sci-fi novelty “Third Rock From the Sun,” were so light they evaporated before their three minutes were up, leaving only the stickiness behind. But back in the last years before the iPod changed everything, when radio was still king, Diffie made hits that played well as background music, but had hooks that sent you grabbing for the volume knob.

Von Drehle concludes by noting Diffie's "breathtaking duet with Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1992, 'Not Too Much to Ask.' Their meeting is the high point of Carpenter’s magnificent album, 'Come On Come On,' and it shows why Diffie had not just fans, but admirers, too."