Diamond Rio - Beginnings

Beginnings

Most of the members of Diamond Rio had previous experience in music. Marty Roe, who was named for country music artist Marty Robbins, began singing country music at the age of three, Gene Johnson had previously played with David Bromberg, Jimmy Olander was a former backing member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Dana Williams was a nephew of the Osborne Brothers.

In 1984, Truman (who had just received a bachelors degree from Brigham Young University) and Roe met for the first time at Opryland USA, a theme park in Nashville, Tennessee. The two soon formed a bluegrass group, which was first named the Tennessee River Boys, and later changed to the Tennessee River Boys. Olander and Johnson, who previously worked with Keith Whitley, joined a year later, followed by Prout and Williams. The band's name was finally changed to Diamond Rio, because others had thought that the previous name made the group sound like a gospel music band. The name Diamond Rio came from truck manufacturer Diamond Reo, a merger of two truck manufacturers, Diamond T and Reo (the latter of which became misspelled in the band's name).

After assuming their new name of Diamond Rio, the band was discovered by Tim DuBois (a record executive at Arista Records) in May 1989. DuBois, who had just opened the label's Nashville division, signed Diamond Rio to a record deal that same month. Shortly after the band received its record deal, however, three members came down with health problems: Olander had discovered that he had a tumor, Williams was seriously injured while boating, and Johnson was injured in a carpentry accident.