Tickets- Official Box Office

JOE NICHOLS: Country Jam 2015 Featuring: ERIC CHURCH

Another industry vet, WCOL welcomes Joe Nichols to this year’s Country Jam!  Raised in Arkansas, Nichols got his first recording deal at age 19, and released his debut album Joe Nichols in 1996.  Following poor sales, Nichols was dropped from the label and had trouble finding further success, even having to pick up odd jobs to pay his bills.  In 1999, a friend of Nichols helped him get signed by Universal South Records, and Nichols released his second album in July of 2002.  Man with a Memory proved to be a much bigger success than his debut, earning Nichols three Grammy nominations, ACM’s award for Top New Male Vocalist, and several singles, including his first number one hit, “Brokenheartsville”.  Nichols catalogue has grown substantially then, with six more albums and four more number one singles, including “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off”, “Sunny and 75”, and “Yeah”.  What will undeniably be an electric show, WCOL is thrilled to have Joe Nichols join us for this year’s Country Jam!

The two- day festival will be hosted at the historic Legend Valley Concert Venue and Campground located on Buckeye Lake, just thirty minutes east of downtown Columbus.  2015 will mark the 3rd year that WCOL Country Jam has taken place at the venue. The festival is packed with a multitude of country music acts from classic country, southern rock country, and modern country artists.

General Admission tickets are currently available. There are several camping options available to patrons. Tickets and camping passes are on-sale now and available at www.LegendValleyFestivals.com.  Camping passes are sold separately.

The WCOL Country Jam is a country festival that has occurred annually for the last 10 years. In 2013, WCOL and Bluestone Promotions formed a partnership to bring the show to the Legend Valley Music Center, a historic venue located near Buckeye Lake in Thornville, Ohio. Previous years included performers Hank Williams Jr., Dierks Bentley, Gary Allan and Tim McGraw.   The venue boasts acres of campgrounds and a large field with great views of the stage. Legend Valley Music Center has functioned as a music venue since the early 1970’s, but has undergone some name changes since that time.  LVMC has hosted a multitude of artists including: The Charlie Daniels Band, The Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Alabama, Journey, and Jimmy Buffett.

Cam Live at The Bluestone

CAM will be performing live at The Bluestone on Thursday December 1st

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening Artist: TBA

Tickets available for $15 in advance and will increase to $20 day of show

General Admission Tickets are standing room only!

PURCHASE TICKETS

CAM.

THE SIMPLE, THREE-LETTER NAME IS BOLD. AND THAT RINGS TRUE TO THE ART, AND THE HEART, OF ONE OF COUNTRY’S SHINING NEW ACTS.

THAT BOLDNESS IS EVIDENT IN NEARLY EVERY STEP SHE TAKES. CAM MAKES IT A HABIT TO WEAR EYE-CATCHING YELLOW EVERY TIME SHE GOES OUT IN PUBLIC. THE STRINGS AND ACOUSTIC GUITAR IN HER BREAKOUT #1 PLATINUM-CERTIFIED SMASH, THE GRAMMY AND ACM AWARDS NOMINATED “BURNING HOUSE,” ARE STIRRINGLY FRAGILE, A BRAVE COUNTERPOINT TO THE PARTY ATMOSPHERE OF MODERN COUNTRY. AND SHE SINGS WITH A DYNAMIC CLARITY THAT’S BOTH DISTINCTIVE AND FRIENDLY.

CAM BACKS UP THAT BOLDNESS WITH A FIRM DELIVERY, EMBEDDING HER MATERIAL WITH A RINGING CONVICTION THROUGHOUT THE 11 SONGS ON HER ARISTA NASHVILLE/RCA RECORDS FULL-LENGTH DEBUT, UNTAMED. RELEASED DECEMBER 11, 2015, HER NEW ALBUM BURST ONTO BILLBOARD’S TOP COUNTRY ALBUMS CHART AT #2 AND EARNED 2015’S BEST FIRST-WEEK ALBUM SALES BY A DEBUT COUNTRY ARTIST.   WHETHER SHE’S SINGING ABOUT FRESH LOVE, BROKEN HEARTS OR DIFFICULT PERSONAL CROSSROADS, SHE’S CLEARLY LIVING THE EXPERIENCE FOR THE THREE OR FOUR MINUTES SHE’S IN IT. ACTUALLY, SHE’S RE-LIVING THE EXPERIENCE, BECAUSE THE EMOTIONS IN EVERY ONE OF HER SONGS COME UNAPOLOGETICALLY FROM HER SINGULAR INTERACTION WITH THE WORLD.

“THERE’S A LOT OF WORK INVOLVED IN BEING AN ARTIST, AND I’M SO HAPPY TO DO IT,” SHE SAYS. “BUT IF I’M GOING TO INVEST MY TIME IN THE WORK PART OF IT, THE MUSIC JUST HAS TO BE ME.”

THE “ME” THAT CAM PRESENTS TO THE WORLD IS MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. SHE’S POWERFULLY VULNERABLE IN “BURNING HOUSE,” FIERCE AND DEFIANT IN “RUNAWAY TRAIN,” EFFERVESCENT AND CAREFREE IN “MY MISTAKE.” AND THE EMOTIONS IN THE MATERIAL AREN’T THE ONLY THING THAT SEPARATES THOSE TITLES – EVERY SONG INCORPORATES A DIFFERENT SONIC PALETTE. WHILE ONE MIGHT RELY ON POLISHED POP INFLUENCES AND MELODY, ANOTHER YIELDS A PIANO BAR FEEL, ONE CLEVERLY INFUSES A BIT OF GREGORIAN CHANT, AND YET ANOTHER USES STEEL GUITAR TO CREATE A CLASSIC-COUNTRY MOOD.

THAT WIDE-RANGING ARTISTRY IS KEY IN CAM’S APPROACH. INSTEAD OF LIMITING HER CHOICES TO MAKE AN EASILY DEFINED PRODUCT, SHE’S PUT FAITH IN THE UNIQUENESS OF HER VOICE, ALLOWING THAT TO BE THE DEFINING CHARACTER OF A PLIABLE, ADVENTUROUS MUSICAL PERSONA.

CO-WRITING EACH OF THE SONGS ON UNTAMED, CAM SAYS, “THE COHESIVE PART IS ME AND MY VOICE. THE MUSIC ALL STEMS FROM THE SAME PLACE, AND IT ALLOWS YOU TO GO IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WITH THE CONTENT AND THE LYRICS AND THE KIND OF VIBE THAT’S GOING ON IN EACH SONG.”

ADVENTURE AND UNIQUENESS WERE PRACTICALLY BUILT IN TO CAM FROM THE OUTSET. CAMARON MARVEL OCHS WAS BORN IN THE WATERFRONT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TOWN OF HUNTINGTON BEACH, SHE SPENT BIG CHUNKS OF HER YOUTH AT HER GRANDPARENTS’ HORSE RANCH IN OCEANSIDE, WHERE THE TRACTOR WAS RED AND THE BARN WAS BLUE. HER GRANDFATHER WAS BOTH A COWBOY AND AN ENTREPRENEUR – HE STARTED HIS OWN BUSINESS, BUILDING WOODEN OFFICE DESKS – AND HER PARENTS WERE SIMILARLY NON-CONFORMIST. HER FATHER GREW UP IN A MILITARY FAMILY AND HAD THE GUTS TO MOVE OUT ON HIS OWN AT AGE 17, A TIME WHEN MOST KIDS ARE LOOKING TO DAD FOR A FEW EXTRA BUCKS TO PUT GAS IN THE CAR AND SEE A MOVIE. HER MOTHER HAD AN EXECUTIVE POSITION IN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT AT A TIME WHEN THOSE JOBS WERE RESERVED ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEN. IN TURN, THEIR INDEPENDENT, SELF-RELIANT STREAK WAS INSTILLED IN CAM, PARTICULARLY AFTER THE FAMILY RELOCATED TO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

“WE’D CLIMB REDWOOD TREES IN THE BACKYARD, AND I WOULD CLIMB SUPER HIGH AND GET STUCK,” SHE RECALLS WITH A LAUGH. “I’D ASK MY DAD TO HELP ME DOWN, AND HE’D SAY, ‘WELL, I CAN’T. YOU’VE GOT TO GET YOUR OWN SELF DOWN. BUT I’LL STAND HERE AND CHEER YOU ON.’”

THERE WAS PLENTY TO CHEER. FOR EIGHT YEARS, BEGINNING IN FOURTH GRADE, CAM WAS PART OF THE CONTRA COSTA CHILDREN’S CHOIR, WHICH SANG IN 14 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. THE CHOIR TOURED INTERNATIONALLY, PERFORMING IN SUCH EXOTIC LOCATIONS AS CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL IN ENGLAND, NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS AND THE VATICAN.

THROUGH THAT PROCESS, CAM LEARNED MUSIC THEORY, HARMONY, STRUCTURE AND TONE. AND SHE LEARNED THE JOY OF BEING PART OF A TEAM.

“I LOVED SINGING IN GROUPS,” SHE SAYS. “I DON’T NECESSARILY LIKE TO BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION.”

WHEN SHE HEADED OFF TO COLLEGE, CAM STUDIED PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS. THE SCHOOL IS CENTERED IN FARMLAND OUTSIDE OF SACRAMENTO, PART OF THE SAME RING OF SMALL-TOWN SUBURBS THAT INCLUDES FOLSOM, A TOWN THAT WOULD BECOME VITAL TO THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY CASH.

THE SETTING WAS CRUCIAL. CAM HAD ALREADY BEGUN TO CONNECT TO DIVERSE BRANDS OF MUSIC – SHE WAS DRAWN TO STRONG, INDIE-ROCK FEMALES AND TO SINGER/SONGWRITERS IN HER CASUAL LISTENING AT THE SAME TIME SHE WAS SINGING CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH THE CHORAL GROUP. BUT COUNTRY MUSIC WAS A BIG PART OF THE SOCIAL SCENE AT DAVIS, AND IT BECAME AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT IN HER SELF-EXPRESSION.

“VARSITY BLUES CAME OUT, AND EVERYBODY WORE COWBOY BOOTS TO SCHOOL,” CAM RECALLS. “AND EVERYBODY LISTENED TO TIM MCGRAW AND THE DIXIE CHICKS AND SHANIA TWAIN.”

THAT INCLUDED CAM, WHO IDENTIFIED WITH THE VALUES OF HOME AND COMMUNITY THAT ARE CENTRAL TO THE GENRE. THAT EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WOULD PAY OFF WHEN SHE PURSUED MUSIC PROFESSIONALLY. WHILE LIVING IN LOS ANGELES, CAM MET A KINDRED SPIRIT IN UP-AND-COMING SONGWRITER/PRODUCER TYLER JOHNSON (TAYLOR SWIFT, P!NK). A SONGWRITING PARTNERSHIP WAS BEGUN, WITH PROMISING EARLY RESULTS – THEY CO-WROTE A SONG ON MILEY CYRUS’ ALBUM BANGERZ, AND CAM ALSO LANDED A SONG ON A PROJECT BY INDIE COUNTRY ACT MAGGIE ROSE.

CAM AND JOHNSON METICULOUSLY WROTE AND REWROTE THE MATERIAL FOR WEEKS AND MONTHS AT A TIME UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE OF GRAMMY®-WINNING PRODUCER AND SONGWRITER JEFF BHASKER (FUN., MARK RONSON), WHO HELPED BRING HER TO THE INDUSTRY’S ATTENTION IN NEW YORK, EVEN WHILE SHE MADE ORGANIC INROADS IN MUSIC CITY.

IN A BIT OF A FLUKE, CAM’S MUSIC WAS DISCOVERED ONLINE BY NASHVILLE RADIO PROGRAMMER MICHAEL BRYAN, WHO STARTED PLAYING ONE OF HER SONGS, “DOWN THIS ROAD,” ON WSIX EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS UNSIGNED. WHILE THE ATTENTION WAS A BOON, WHEELS WERE ALREADY IN MOTION BEHIND THE SCENES WITH LABEL MEETINGS IN NASHVILLE WHEN BHASKER GOT CAM A MEETING IN NEW YORK WITH RCA RECORDS CHAIRMAN & CEO PETER EDGE AND PRESIDENT & COO TOM CORSON. BLOWN AWAY BY HER INCREDIBLE VOICE AND IRRESISTIBLE PERSONALITY AND CHARM, EDGE IMMEDIATELY CALLED SONY MUSIC’S CEO, DOUG MORRIS, WHO LIKEWISE FELL FOR HER UNDENIABLE TALENT WHEN SHE AUDITIONED FOR HIM. IN A RARE SITUATION, SHE’S NOW SIGNED TO BOTH THE COUNTRY (ARISTA NASHVILLE) AND POP (RCA RECORDS) LABELS – SHE SEES HERSELF AS A COUNTRY ACT, BUT IF HER MUSIC BREAKS OUT OF THE GENRE OR FINDS AN AUDIENCE OVERSEAS, THE POP DIVISION IS WAITING IN THE WINGS.

MANY OF HER SONGS WENT THROUGH MAJOR REVISIONS EVEN AFTER SHE SIGNED HER DEAL, A REFLECTION OF CAM’S EVOLUTION AS AN ARTIST AND HER DOGGED PURSUIT OF A DISTINCTIVE SOUND. AS THE ARRANGEMENTS OR INSTRUMENTATION CHANGED, THE LYRICS INVARIABLY GOT TWEAKED, TOO. SHE WAS PRESENT FOR EVERY NUANCE, ENSURING THAT THE END RESULTS REFLECTED HER REALITY.

“IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME TO KNOW EVERYTHING THAT WAS INVOLVED IN MY MUSIC,” SHE SAYS. “I’M THERE FOR ALL THE PRODUCTION THAT HAPPENS, I SIGN OFF ON ALL THE MIXES, I’M THERE FOR THE RECORDING. THE PEOPLE THAT ARE WORKING WITH ME ARE INCREDIBLE, SO I’M NOT DRIVING EVERY ASPECT OF IT, BUT I’M THERE INSPIRING IT.”

IN EARLY 2015, COUNTRY RADIO WAS INTRODUCED TO CAM WITH THE ENGAGING FIRST SINGLE, “MY MISTAKE,” WHILE HER FOUR-SONG EP, WELCOME TO CAM COUNTRY, DEBUTED ON SPOTIFY. THE MEDIA WAS IMPRESSED WITH CAM’S POSSIBILITIES. BILLBOARD PRAISED HER MUSIC AS “AT ONCE FRESH AND FAMILIAR, THAT RARE MIX OF DARING AND COMFORT THAT’S OFTEN THE HALLMARK OF A HIT,” WHILE GOSSIP KING PEREZ HILTON CHAMPIONED HER FOR BEING “FEARLESS.” THE ACCOLADES CONTINUED WITH THE RISE OF “BURNING HOUSE,” WHICH ROLLING STONE COUNTRY CALLED “HAUNTING” AND “ONE OF THE MOST BUZZED-ABOUT TUNES OF THE YEAR.” AND THE WASHINGTON POST LAUDED BOTH “MY MISTAKE” AND “BURNING HOUSE,” NOTING THAT “THE TWO SONGS FEEL LIKE NIGHT AND DAY, BUT THEY ALSO SUGGEST RANGE AND DEPTH.”

SINCE JULY 6, 2015, THE OFFICIAL RADIO IMPACT DATE OF “BURNING HOUSE, NOT ONLY HAS CAM BECOME THE ONLY COUNTRY FEMALE TO ACHIEVE MORE THAN 1 MILLION DOWNLOADS OF A SINGLE THIS PAST YEAR, BUT, ADDITIONALLY, BOTH HER BREAKTHROUGH HIT AND DEBUT DISC MADE MULTIPLE “BEST OF 2015” CRITICS’ LISTS, INCLUDING ROLLING STONE, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, THE WASHINGTON POST, ASSOCIATED PRESS, NASHVILLE SCENE, AMONG OTHERS. CAM ALSO BECAME THE MOST-NOMINATED FEMALE AT THE 2016 ACM AWARDS WITH SIX TOTAL NODS, AND, SHE RECEIVED A 2016 GRAMMY NOMINATIONFOR “BEST COUNTRY SOLO PERFORMANCE” FOR “BURNING HOUSE” AND 2016 AMERICAN COUNTRY COUNTDOWN AWARDS NOMINATIONS FOR “FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR” AND “BREAKTHROUGH FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR.” HER CAREER IS SHOWING PROMISE.

PROMISE IS PART OF CAM’S CHARM. EVEN IN “BURNING HOUSE,” A SPARE SONG ABOUT A CRUMBLING RELATIONSHIP, ONE CAN SENSE AN UNDERLYING POSITIVITY: HER PERSISTENCE AND HER DETERMINATION TO MEND A DEVASTATING FRACTURE.

IT’S A RARE GIFT, AND IT’S REFLECTED IN HER BOLD PENCHANT FOR YELLOW. SHE SPRINKLES THAT COLOR INTO SHOES, DRESSES, BRACELETS – SOMETIMES A COMBINATION OF ALL OF THEM – AS SHE VISUALLY CAPTURES HER INNER GLOW. THAT GOLDEN SIGNATURE LOOK WAS DEVELOPED OUT OF A CONVERSATION WITH HER MANAGER, LINDSAY MARIAS. CAM HAD RAISED A FAIR AMOUNT OF MONEY THROUGH A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN AND WAS USING SOME OF THAT REVENUE TO FUND A VIDEO. WORKING LATE AT NIGHT DURING THE PRODUCTION, CAM MADE SOME COFFEE TO GET A LIFT, AND AS SHE GRABBED A CUP, SHE PURPOSELY CHOSE A YELLOW ONE OFF THE SHELF.

“I REALLY NEEDED THIS BRIGHT MOMENT TO BE ABLE TO JUST CONNECT WITH PEOPLE THROUGH THE VIDEO,” SHE EXPLAINS. “LINDSAY WAS THERE WITH ME, AND SHE SAID, ‘YOU ARE YELLOW.’ IT’S SO CHEERY AND FRIENDLY AND RELATABLE, AND ALL THOSE ADJECTIVES FIT SO WELL WITH ME AS A PERSON AND WHAT MY MUSIC IS ABOUT, SO IT JUST ALL CLICKED. THEN THE MORE WE INCORPORATED YELLOW, I STAND OUT IN PICTURES. PEOPLE SEND ME YELLOW THINGS, AND EVEN IF I’M TIRED OR IF IT’S A SUPER-COLD, SNOWY DAY, YELLOW LIFTS PEOPLE’S SPIRITS. IT KIND OF DOES HALF THE WORK FOR YOU.”

IT’S A SIGN OF CAM’S BOLDNESS. HER DEAL, HER MUSIC, HER PHILOSOPHY – EVEN HER NAME: EVERYTHING ABOUT HER STANDS OUT. IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED CAM, YOU SIMPLY WEREN’T LOOKING.

Russell Dickerson will be performing live at The Bluestone on Friday, February 17th, 2017

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening artist: TBA

Tickets are $15

Tickets on-sale Friday, November 4th at 10am

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Josh Abbott Band

live at

 The Bluestone Thursday, November 16th

as part of their

“Until my Voice Runs Out tour”

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening Artist: TBD

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 day of show

PURCHASE HERE

RESERVED LOFT TABLE SEATING

RESERVED TABLE PURCHASE DOES NOT INCLUDE ADMISSION TICKETS TO THE SHOW.  

Admission tickets must be purchased separately

The loft is located on the second level of The Bluestone

• Loft Lower Tier: $250 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Prime view of stage!
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• Server
• Exclusive Private Bar access

• Loft Upper Tier: $200 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
•  Server
• Private Bar Access
• May be Obstruction in View

*All Reserved tables located in the loft area

ALL SALES ARE FINAL

When Josh Abbott Band recorded “Ghosts” for its fourth album, Front Row Seat, Abbott expected to redo the vocals. The final chorus had some technical imperfections, and he figured he could improve on the performance once his heart settled down. Producer Dwight Baker, one-half of the Austinbased duo The Wind and The Wave, wouldn’t let Abbott retouch it.

“I was actually crying my eyes out during that last chorus, and that’s why there’s a couple of notes in the beginning of that section that don’t really explode like normal,” Abbott says. “Dwight was like, ‘We’re keeping that. That’s real.’”

Real is the operative word for Front Row Seat, a 16-track song cycle that represents the most ambitious and emotionally challenging project yet for JAB, a highly melodic six-piece ensemble that’s managed to keep a foot in both the Texas music scene and the national country world. The band won four times during the inaugural Texas Regional Radio Awards behind an upbeat brand of country that still leans on classic instrumentation – particularly banjo and fiddle – to effect a raucous, roof-raising attitude.

The band has lobbed three singles onto the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart – including “Oh, Tonight,” the first charted track to feature Grammy-winning Kacey Musgraves – and nabbed a Top 10 album with the 2012 release Small Town Family Dreams and reached No. 12 with the 2014 EP Tuesday Night.

But Front Row Seat steps beyond the band’s honky-tonk inclinations for a more personal journey as the album traverses the emotional course of Abbott’s first marriage and subsequent divorce. It was not his original intention to depict his private life in a public way, but as he wrote the songs for Front Row Seat, beginning before the split actually occurred, he naturally mined his emotional life for a set of songs that were profoundly honest and revealing. It was only as they began recording the material at Baker’s Matchbox Studios outside of Austin, that they realized they had the germ of a tangible plot.

“We started looking at the music we’d done and had a whole bunch of other songs that we really loved and we were like, ‘Man, we could put this together and make a really neat story out of it,” fiddler Preston Wait recalls. “Especially with the song ‘Front Row Seat,’ we basically just made it kind of like you’re watching a movie and it’s your front row seat to this life.”

Owing to that silver-screen character, JAB employed screenwriting technique by assembling the project with the five elements of plot structure: the exposition, or beginning; an inciting incident; the climax; a falling action (in this case, a breakup); and the resolution.

The story begins with “While I’m Young,” in which a college-aged Abbott lives a typically carefree existence, spending much of his discretionary income in bars and living for the moment, an ideal that’s captured authoritatively in the anthemic “Live It While You Got It.” As the album progresses, he meets a woman who commands his attention for more than one evening, finding himself by track 7, “Crazy Things,” mulling what it is that would make a woman who’s dang-near perfect fall for someone so flawed.

By the time the album concludes, his once-ideal relationship has turned sour, and the two are no longer one. The fracture becomes apparent through the resignation of “Born To Break Your Heart,” and he discovers in “Ghosts” that all the memories that once lived with such passion and revelry continue to haunt his memory, taunting him with whispers of a past he can never reclaim. As Front Row Seat closes with “Anonymity,” Abbott sings a spare dirge with acoustic guitar and fiddle, fantasizing that he could return to the start of the relationship and live it out right.

Joe Diffie LIVE at The Bluestone on June 29th, 2018

*Opening Artist: Dillon Carmichael and David Adam Byrnes

*Doors for the show will open at 7PM

*Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 day of show

Tickets On-Sale Now!

Joe Diffie was regarded by many of his peers as one of the better vocalists in contemporary country, and lent his traditional sensibilities to humorous, rock-tinged novelties and plaintive ballads. Diffie was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1958 and grew up in a musical family, first performing in public at age four with his aunt’s country band. He played in a rock band during high school, and later moved on to a gospel quartet and, during college, a bluegrass band called the Special Edition. He worked on his songwriting and singing over the next few years while working in a foundry, and caught a break when his “Love on the Rocks” was recorded by Hank Thompson. When Randy Travis nearly recorded another of his songs, Diffie was convinced he had a shot in the business, and moved to Nashville in 1986. He took a job at the Gibson guitar plant while continuing to write songs, and became an in-demand demo singer as well. Holly Dunn’s 1989 recording of a Diffie collaboration, “There Goes My Heart Again,” proved a major hit, and Diffie found himself a hot commodity. He signed with Epic and released his debut album, A Thousand Winding Roads, in 1990. His first single, “Home,” went all the way to number one on the country charts, and “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)” duplicated that feat; meanwhile, two more singles from the album, “If You Want Me To” and “New Way (To Light Up an Old Flame),” reached number two.

Diffie became a regular hitmaker over the rest of the ’90s, and scored again with his sophomore LP, 1992’s Regular Joe; “Is It Cold in Here” and “Ships That Don’t Come In” both made the Top Five. Known primarily for his ballads at this point in his career, Diffie switched things up with 1993’s Honky Tonk Attitude, which emphasized his rambunctious, rocking side and sense of humor, and proved to be his biggest-selling album yet. The title track, “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die),” and “John Deere Green” all went Top Five. Sticking with engaging humor as the selling point of his hugely popular follow-up, 1994’s Third Rock from the Sun, Diffie scored two number ones with the title track and “Pickup Man,” plus a Top Five hit in “So Help Me Girl.” 1995 brought a holiday album, Mr. Christmas, as well as a proper release in Life’s So Funny, which gave Diffie his fifth number one hit in “Bigger Than the Beatles.” 1997’s Twice Upon a Time saw his commercial momentum slipping a bit, and so Epic issued a Greatest Hits compilation the following year; its new song, “Texas Sized Heartache,” returned Diffie to the Top Five. 1999’s A Night to Remember was the most straight-ahead, traditional country record Diffie had yet recorded, and it gave him two Top Ten hits in the title cut and “It’s Always Somethin’.” He returned to his more established style for 2001’s In Another World, which found him transferred to Sony’s reactivated Monument subsidiary; its title track went Top Ten early the next year. Tougher Than Nails followed in 2004, then in 2010 Diffie returned to bluegrass for Homecoming: The Bluegrass Album, which was released by Rounder Records and was greeted by warm reviews.

Diffie had a bit of an unexpected revival in early 2013, when his name provided the chorus of Jason Aldean’s party-hearty hit “1994.” Later that year, Diffie set out on the road with fellow country singers Sammy Kershaw and Aaron Tippin on a tour called All in the Same Boat; the trio released an accompanying album of the same name in May. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi