He called it a shot in the arm when younger fans began showing up at his concerts wanting to discover who the man from “1994” actually was, and many had already gone backward into his catalog and learned the older songs.
A shot in the arm.
Joe Diffie had been off the center of country radio for years when Jason Aldean released a song that had an entire new generation chanting his name. Diffie had nothing to do with making the record, then he heard what they had done and his name had become the chant at the center of the song.
Diffie At His Peak And Aldean Still In High School
In 1994 Joe Diffie was near the height of his career. “Third Rock from the Sun” reached No. 1. Then “Pickup Man” followed and stayed there four weeks.
Jason Aldean was still a high school junior in Georgia, listening to Diffie and playing songs from that era before his own career existed. Aldean later remembered attending a Macon festival where roughly 5,000 people gathered for Diffie while only a few hundred watched a young Kenny Chesney on another stage.
Songwriters Build A Track Around 1990s Nostalgia
Almost two decades passed. By 2012 Aldean had become one of country music’s biggest stars.
Songwriters Thomas Rhett, Luke Laird and Barry Dean were working on another song when the session changed direction. They built a track around 1990s nostalgia, filling it with references to Diffie records including “Pickup Man” and “John Deere Green” and “Third Rock from the Sun” and “Honky Tonk Attitude.” They called it “1994.”
Aldean heard the demo while songs were being pitched for him and asked to hear it again. Soon afterward he recorded it for Night Train. It became the album’s third single in March 2013.
Stunned By What The Chant Meant
Diffie said he was initially stunned, then realized thousands of younger Aldean fans would suddenly be shouting the name of a singer whose biggest records had been released when many of them were children or not yet born.
The effect followed him off the radio as those younger people began appearing at his shows and then moving backward through his music. What surprised him even more was how many had learned those older songs after discovering him through Aldean.
Aldean had grown up playing Joe Diffie songs in Georgia clubs. Years later some of Aldean’s own fans discovered those same records by moving in the opposite direction, starting with Jason Aldean and working their way back to Joe.