Big names like HARDY, Lainey Wilson collab on 'Difftape' to give Joe Diffie praise

Garth Brooks opened for Joe Diffie and Joe Diffie opened for George Strait.

There is no better way to summarize the fundamental importance of Diffie, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, native with over a dozen No. 1 and top-10 country hits between 1990-2001, including the back-to-back 1994 smashes "Third Rock from the Sun" and "Pickup Man." Diffie died in 2020 due to complications related to COVID-19.

Now, via a Big Loud-released and HARDY-cosigned compilation of cover performances from Diffie's catalog, a better characterization has arrived to characterize his impact:

Not only did his career achieve success that impacted those of Brooks and Strait, but it also impacted nearly a dozen other Country Music Hall of Famers, the sellers of the equivalent of hundreds of millions of recordings in the past decade, and performers with modern mainstream pop cultural impact, sparking country music to a defining role in American culture.

Yes, this 17-track album, produced by Joey Moi and features Diffie's vocals paired with artists including Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire and Toby Keith, as well as Post Malone, Morgan Wallen and Lainey Wilson.

It also features Aaron Tippin, Blake Shelton, Chris Young, Clint Black, Darius Rucker, Hailey Whitters, Jack Ingram, Kameron Marlowe, Koe Wetzel, Lauren Watkins, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Mark Wills, Nate Smith, Old Dominion, Randall King, Sammy Kershaw, ERNEST, Jake Worthington, Jon Pardi, Larry Fleet, Randy Houser and Tracy Lawrence.

A son, like the country music world, in awe of his father's legacy

Parker Diffie, Joe Diffie's son, also sings alongside his father and HARDY on the album's finale, "Life Had Plans for Me."

The lyrics, "My life turned out better than I ever thought it would be / Yeah I had plans for life, but life had plans for me," hit differently when performed by a trio unified in sound, inspiration and family ties.

"My family and I couldn't be any more pleased by the release," stated the Nashville resident who is the son of Joe and his first wife, Janise Parker.

"As someone who had the profound privilege of performing alongside my father, it fills my heart with immense joy to witness his enduring legacy continued with the same passion and fervor that he embodied," Parker Diffie added via a press statement. "The release of 'Hixtape: Vol. 3: Difftape' is an opportunity to not only celebrate the past but also to embrace the future with reverence and enthusiasm."

Joe Diffie's career was defined by crystallizing earnest songwriting with hilarious hooks and a voice comfortable in Red Dirt rock but also comparable to the honeyed yet sturdy traditional country vocals of acts like Mark Chestnutt and George Jones.

To wit, there's something apropos about a '90s-era compatriot in Tracy Lawrence, plus Wilson — both of whom know how to turn a phrase and a smile — singing "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)." Also, Shelton, HARDY, and Brooks & Dunn joining forces for "Third Rock from the Sun" feels like a night 100 miles away from Oklahoma City during the '90s country boom — or a night at Shelton's current Ole Red honky-tonk on Nashville's Lower Broadway.

Possibly more entertaining, Jon Pardi and Old Dominion singing "Bigger than the Beatles" transposes honky-tonk good times to a timeless place on Music Row between the drinking holes Losers and ReBar.

"My dad was good at those cheeky and quirky mid-tempo songs with funny little sayings, but when he would sing a ballad, he could portray emotions that could melt your heart," Parker Diffie tells The Tennessean.

HARDY says he always admired the quality of the songs in Joe Diffie's catalog.

"He had an unbelievable ear for hits," HARDY says.

How it all came together

In 2021, Diffie's managers, Jeff Lysyczyn and Al McManus of Big Show Music Co., wanted to honor their client's memory with a coffee table book and album of cover songs. Ideally, they wanted Wallen to be on the project, which led them to Big Loud Records. Instead of just Wallen, the project was pushed to blend with HARDY's established Hixtape project.

For the past five years, the singer-songwriter-producer-curator has become a feature-laden catch-all for songs HARDY has written that end up cut by a who's who of country, Americana and pop that has included an astonishingly broad mix of artists, including Dierks Bentley, Marty Stuart, Ashland Craft, the Brothers Osborne, and BRELAND, plus David Lee Murphy, ERNEST, and Ben Burgess.

In a 2021 CMT interview, HARDY noted that the project was as much driven by artistic curiosity and curatorial genius as it was by drunken connections and enjoyable hangs at summer country festivals.

"That creates a great memory, I get their phone number, and two months later, I text them and ask them to be on a 'Hixtape' track," he noted.

The "Difftape" expands the concept.

"It's incredible that this grew from a small memento for my father's family and fans to a project that became something exponentially more unimaginable — I mean, my dad is being honored by Post Malone?!?!" Diffie says. "And his original vocal track is also on the record? And the label was adamant that my father's vocal should be there? I love that.

"What Post didn't know was how strenuous 'John Deere Green' was vocally. Yeah, it's a feel good song, but maybe not for the vocalist sometimes," joked Diffie.

"So many artists are inspired by my father's work, which warms my heart. He was so humble about his gifts as an artist. Once he was successful, when he saw an artist like Tim McGraw achieving success, he leased him his tour bus to use while he was playing gigs when (my father) was off the road. That's just the kind of guy he was."

'My father's getting the flowers he deserves'

Parker Diffie laughs and sighs when asked about two performances in particular. Foremost, before his recent passing, forthcoming Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Keith paired with Combs to cover 1992's "Ships That Don't Come In," while another Country Music Hall of Famer, Reba McEntire, paired with Texas crooner Jake Worthington on "Is It Cold in Here?"

Similar to Combs' recent award-winning and genre-advancing work with Tracy Chapman's classic "Fast Car," the multiple-time CMA Entertainer of the Year sings "Ships That Don't Come In" with the confidence of a world-class karaoke ringer deserving of platinum plaques. Insofar as Worthington, it continues in a series of performances where after he was finished he, as humbly as Diffie, remarked that he was impressed by how great the late artist's voice was.

"Turns out, Jake Worthington isn't so bad, either," joked Parker Diffie.

As far as Keith and McEntire, the tandem showcases the rare tenderness and grit required to understand the power of heartbreak and hope attached — on levels both stereotypical and all too real — to being an Oklahoma native. The former's deeply philosophical inspirations and the latter, for McEntire, falling alongside "Whoever's in New England" and "Does He Love You" in her heart-wrenched stylings about a love turned cold.

"There are moments on this album, like those, when I get full chills, tears and huge emotions. Icons like those singing my father's music? That just blows me away."

Diffie feels that the album makes his father's creative vision for his own music into a first-class and timeless country music ideal.

"My father's getting the flowers he deserves. Everyone — from the artists to the fans — gets to pay tribute to my personal hero."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: ERNEST, Morgan Wallen, Post Malone contribute to tribute 'Difftape'