Joe Diffie, who died of the coronavirus Sunday at age 61, was a reliable Nashville hitmaker in the early ’90s, placing more than a dozen songs in the Top 10 of the country charts; five of them went to No. 1. This one featured a video that owes a lot to “Weekend at Bernie’s,” and it typifies the honky-tonk spirit that captivated fans.
His biggest hit was 1994’s “Pickup Man,” which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the country charts.
Diffie’s chart success waned by the late ’90s, but he kept recording. He returned to his bluegrass roots on his “Homecoming” LP, released in 2010.
His place in the Nashville pantheon was solidified in 2014, when Jason Aldean name-checked him and used the titles of several of his songs in the lyrics of “1994.”
