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Diffie excited about upcoming Russellville performance

Through his 27-year music career, country star Joe Diffie has received many awards.

That includes a Grammy in 1998 for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for Same Old Train, a song he recorded with Marty Stuart. Diffie was named Male Vocalist of the Year by Cash Box in 1990 and he earned honors with the Academy of Country Music for Vocal Event of the Year for I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair with George Jones.

But the honor he most cherishes doesn't have anything to do with music at all. It's the 1997 Humanitarian Award he received from the Country Radio Broadcasters for his tireless work with the charity First Steps, a nonprofit organization for the education of mentally and physically impaired children.

Diffie's son Tyler was born with Down Syndrome and he said First Steps was a blessing for Tyler.

It was surprising, stunning and really emotional for me to win that Humanitarian of the Year award,” Diffie told the Franklin Free Press in an exclusive interview last week. “We did a lot of work raising money for the school he attended because it was mostly privately funded. It meant so much to my son and I always wanted to give back.”

Diffie will be the headliner at next month's Jam on Sloss Lake, the annual Fourth of July event hosted by the City of Russellville.

Diffie broke onto the country scene with a major splash in 1990. His first single, Home, vaulted to number one on the Billboard Hot Country Chart and the hits kept on coming for Diffie. He has 35 charted cuts on Billboard, including 20 top 10 singles and five number one songs, including If the Devil Danced, Third Rock From the Sun, Pickup Man and Bigger Than the Beatles.

For Diffie, success came so fast he really didn't have time as a young artist to appreciate how far he'd come in the industry.

There wasn't a lot of time for reflection. I kind of held my breath and hoped it would continue,” Diffie said. “I got my first number one song and it didn't seem real but it was. I was on the road 230 days a year back then. And when we weren't on the road, I was doing Fanfare, the CMA Awards, etc., so needless to say I wasn't home much,” he added.

Although he's never recorded in Muscle Shoals, Diffie does have a Shoals connection with a song on his In Another World album, released in 2001. Like a River Dreams of Rain, a tract on that album, was co-written by Shoals residents Walt Aldridge and James LeBlanc.

As a child, Diffie's family moved around a lot. His childhood saw Diffie residing in Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and back to Oklahoma. Before he headed to Nashville in 1986, Diffie worked at a foundry, worked in the Texas oil fields and drove a cement pump truck for Halliburton.

His first Nashville job was with Gibson Guitar Corporation, where he worked in the shipping/receiving department. He dipped into the country music industry recording demos and he eventually did that full-time. Diffie was signed by Epic Records in 1990 and his career skyrocketed from there.

The 59-year-old still keeps an active tour schedule, something he plans to continue for the foreseeable future.

I'd hate to sit home idle. I enjoy singing and enjoy performing in front of the fans. They're such a big part of what I do,” Diffie said. “Sometimes, the travel gets old but when I finally get on stage and interact with fans, nothing can duplicate that.”

Although it only peaked at number five on the charts, Diffie's signature song is John Deere Green. The up-tempo love song is far and away his most requested by fans he said. But Diffie's personal favorite is Ships That Don't Come In, a heartwarming ballad that also ascended to number five on Billboard.

Ships tells a different story to different people. I've had fans tell me so many different ways what that song means to them,” he said.

Fans interested in meeting Diffie can log onto www.joediffie.com and sign up for a premium VIP Meet and Greet at his Russellville show. The package includes a Diffie t-shirt, CD, autograph and photos with the star.

Diffie's career received a shot in the arm with the 2012 release of Jason Aldean's 1994, a tribute to Diffie written by Thomas Rhett, who grew up a big fan of Diffie's. The song references many of Diffie's hits and he's developed a new fan base comprised of fans of Rhett and Aldean, both of whom perform the song at their shows.

His manager contacted my manager before the song was released to ask me what I thought. I said I was flattered if they wanted to do that. Thomas Rhett wrote it and nobody thought the song would be released as a single but I get a lot of their fans coming to my show and they say 'oh, that's the guy they're talking about,'” Diffie said.

Diffie has signed with Silverado Records and he's working on a new album set to be released in the fall of 2017.

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody in Russellville and it should be a blast on the Fourth,” Diffie said.

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