Joe Diffie - Grand Ole Opry Descendant of Daniel Haston
Yes, his great-great-grandfather was my great grandfather David Montgomery Haston. His great grandfather was Jack Haston a nephew of my granddaddy. His grandmother and my mother were first cousins. I did know his grandmother. She helped me when I was doing our Haston tree. We had family reunions at Loco, Oklahoma because that was where his ancestor settled. Joey, what they called him, played the piano when he was young as we sang hymns.
- Joe started school in Velma, Oklahoma, moved to San Antonio, Texas when he was in the first grade, then Washington state for fourth and fifth grade, and over to Wisconsin for sixth grade through sophomore year of high school and finally back to Oklahoma for the rest of high school.
- Joe’s parents claim he could sing harmonies when he was three years old.
- In high school, Joe played football, baseball, golf and ran track and was recognized as Best All-Around Male Athlete.
- Some of his early jobs included working in the oil field, driving a truck that pumped cement out of oil wells, and working in a foundry.
- Joe started out in a gospel group called Higher Purpose then a bluegrass band called Special Edition.
- Once owned his own recording studio.
- Hank Thompson, Holly Dunn, Tim McGraw, and Jo Dee Messina recorded songs written by Diffie.
- Jo Dee Messina took her own version of Joe’s “By Give a Damn’s Busted” to the top of the charts.
- Joe Diffie has had five #1 hits, twelve top 10 singles and ten other songs that have reached the top 40.
- In 1993, Joe became a member of the Grand Ole Opry and in 2002 was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.
Source: 10 Interesting Facts About Joe Diffie (973thedawg.com)
The arrival of the coronavirus to Nashville came early in March 2020. Joe Diffie passed away at the age of 61 — just two days after releasing a statement about his diagnosis through his publicist — marked the first reported loss of a country star to coronavirus-related complications. An admired, early-’90s neotraditionalist, Diffie had a belated professional start but a quick breakthrough that came a few years into a wave of hard-country singers who favored naturalistic production. By 1995, Diffie had scored more than a dozen Top 10 hits. Source: https://n.pr/3gIxIrM
“Home” by Joe Diffie – Many of Us Can Identify with this Song
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