Jim Duff is an American singer-songwriter, poet, producer, and multi-instrumentalist whose music pulls from the heart of the country and the streets of the city in equal measure. Over a career that spans more than three decades, he has written and recorded well over 300 original songs, moving freely among folk, Americana, country, blues, jazz, and rock while retaining an unmistakable voice all his own.
Early roots
Born on March 9 1972 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in the small town of Waynesburg, Kentucky, Duff grew up amid tobacco farms and rolling hills. Much of his character was shaped by his grandfather Clarence Barnett, a fiddle-playing entrepreneur who literally milled his own lumber and built the family funeral home after banks refused him a loan. As a boy, Jim helped dig graves, hauled lumber, worked in hay, cut and housed tobacco, milked cows, and absorbed the values of perseverance and self-reliance.
His mother Clara Ray (Barnett) Haught ran a beauty salon where locals gathered for haircuts. His father James Hiram Duff served as president of Teamsters Local 413 union. His parents divorced when he was three years old. His step-father Donald Haught provided steady guidance in his youth as well. At a young age, an accident where his thumb was slammed in a tractor trailer door left his thumb permanently disfigured. At 13, began playing guitar. He restrung a right-handed guitar upside-down to suit his left-handed playing, launching a lifelong devotion to music. He later captained his high-school football team as an All-State center, but music soon eclipsed sports as his true passion.
Miles on the road
At eighteen Duff bypassed a football scholarship and entered the workforce. He began climbing telecommunications towers in Dallas Texas—a job that would carry him to new cities for the next two decades.
Cincinnati and entrepreneurship
In 2012 Duff settled in Cincinnati, Ohio and founded Field Dailies, (https://www.fielddailies.com) and worked along side his oldest son, Waylon Duff. Field Dailies is a field-service software start-up that was later acquired by Ritel Inc. Though the tech world kept him busy, songwriting remained the center of his life.
A fight for lifeIn October 2018 Duff was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma that had spread to his brain, lung, liver, and spine. Under the care of Dr. Philip D. Leming, and his team of healthcare professionals, he underwent brain surgery, forty-five radiation treatments, chemotherapy, and two years of intensive immunotherapy that turned his hair and skin snow-white. Throughout treatment he continued to write, penning the uplifting anthem “Lift You Up” for the medical teams, friends, and family who stood by him. By 2021 Duff reached full remission, crediting faith, music, and relentless support for pulling him through. During that time, when he thought he might die, Duff exited both the telecom and the software industries to focus on his health.
River Cities Records and the next chapter
Duff spent 2022 and 2023 crafting new songs and remixing older masters. In 2025 he signed a record deal with River Cities Records, which began releasing remastered editions of his extensive catalogue with upgraded audio, new artwork, and liner-notes that trace the arc of his life. That same year he launched the “Do It For Life” tour, bringing fresh energy to venues across the United States and reconnecting with fans who had followed his journey from Kentucky barns to California freeways.
Poetry and parallel art
Music is only one avenue for Duff’s storytelling. His poetry collection Pantheon of the Senses (Olympia Publishers, 2023) gives voice to personified forces such as Love, Reason, and Industry, offering reflections on mortality, wonder, and the human spirit. Written during cancer treatment, the book stands beside his albums as a testament to hope and imagination.
Today
Now based in Cincinnati, Duff writes and records every day in a small home studio filled with guitars, mandolins, and well-worn notebooks. He is the proud father of Waylon (1993), Olivia “Liv” (2002), and McMalcolm (2014). Since 2024 he has been in a serious relationship that, like much of his life, fuels new songs and chapters yet to be written. From Appalachian front porches to West Coast highways, from tower tops to hospital rooms, Jim Duff’s story is a testament to endurance, independence, and the power of a song well written.
Jim Duff Song List by Year
1998-1999
3‑Piece Suit; Gemmy; Grubsenyaw; Head Up; Hero; Hickory Dickory Dock; Innocence Lost; Leavin’ (Leaving); One Hundred Clear Fork Road; Picture of Love; Services Rendered; Who’da Thunk It?
2001
Dogwood; Fine Line; Handy’s Bend; Heart Land; Hit the Ground Running; Jamie’s Fool; Mountain; One More Chance; One to Grow On; Red White and Boom; Rita; Run Away; Searchin’ the Fields; Set it Free; She’s Gonna Take; Small Town; Still in Love with You; Things That Are Good For; This Is for Everything; Tippy Top
2002
Billy Went to Nashville; Dream of Loving You; Epitome of Fortuity; Fly Away; Genny; Looking for Greater Things; One Good Reason; Retirement Day
2003
Bobby Ray and Larry James; Country Boy Trying to Make a Living; Devil in Me; Drive You Off My Mind; Hollywood Couldn’t Kick the Country Out of Me; I Got a Girl; I Could Never Tell Her No; Judge Me; Nothing Guaranteed; Out With the Old; Over the Side; Perfect Man; Portrait of Me; Reach for Me; Reflection of a Fool; Rise Up; Save Your Children; Since the Beginning of Time; What Did I Do?
2006
Plan B; Twirl You Around; Wind It On Down; Wish I Had a Girl
2007
Forgive Myself; La da De Da; Nanny Lou; Never Enough Time; Never Tell Her No; Whiskey Christmas
2008
Because of You; Best Thing About My Baby; Bill; Country Drive; Day Time TV; Freight Train Honey; Good to the Bone; Greek Supper; I Gotta Know; Jimi Jam; Sing Me Something; Solid as a Rock; Star Gazer; Walking; Way You Look at Me; What Do They Know That I Don’t Know
2009
Let Me Lead You; Sing Me Home Nashville
2011
Along for the Ride; Bubbles
2012
Big Bag; Billy; Free Walking; Happy Go Lucky; High Step; Midnight Jazz; Midnight Piano; Parallel Dimensions; Trying to Make a Living
2013
Blue Sun; Duff the Black; Flight to Hell; Little Mex; Real Love; Song of Reighlon
2014
Beginning Cue; Bourbon on Rocks; Boy Country Cue; Country Swamp Cue; Feel the Groove; Fight Along Evil; Nat King; Take My Heart
2015
Jazz Craz; Movement; Rain Dance
2016
Daddy’s Little Girl; Death Drives the Carriage; He Went West; Music Man; My Salvation; Rest Easy; She Won’t Let You Love Me; What’s Left; Without a Trace
2017
Texas Will Have to Wait; Try to Love Again
2018
Back to You; Can’t Make You Love Me; Gypsey Queen; In Cincinnati; Never Getting Over You
2019
Don’t Cry for Me; Fields of a Working Man; Love Me One More Time; Loving You Comes Easy; More Than Love
2020
Amongst the Living; Still Standing; What’s Left
2021
Age of Harmony; Back to the One; California Train; Cosmic Vagabond; Do It for Life; Lift You Up; Love One Another
2022
Song of Reighlon
2023
Cryin’ Shame; Left Turn to Cleveland; Ol’ Cowboy; Revolutionary Bums
2024
Bad Memories; My Work; Song of Lavaughn; Song of Procadius; This Old Hill; Thursday Wants to Be a Song
2025
Better Christmas; Farewell Elkin; It Was You; My Life Starts With You; New York City Dream; Wait for You in Heaven
Early roots
Born on March 9 1972 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in the small town of Waynesburg, Kentucky, Duff grew up amid tobacco farms and rolling hills. Much of his character was shaped by his grandfather Clarence Barnett, a fiddle-playing entrepreneur who literally milled his own lumber and built the family funeral home after banks refused him a loan. As a boy, Jim helped dig graves, hauled lumber, worked in hay, cut and housed tobacco, milked cows, and absorbed the values of perseverance and self-reliance.
His mother Clara Ray (Barnett) Haught ran a beauty salon where locals gathered for haircuts. His father James Hiram Duff served as president of Teamsters Local 413 union. His parents divorced when he was three years old. His step-father Donald Haught provided steady guidance in his youth as well. At a young age, an accident where his thumb was slammed in a tractor trailer door left his thumb permanently disfigured. At 13, began playing guitar. He restrung a right-handed guitar upside-down to suit his left-handed playing, launching a lifelong devotion to music. He later captained his high-school football team as an All-State center, but music soon eclipsed sports as his true passion.
Miles on the road
At eighteen Duff bypassed a football scholarship and entered the workforce. He began climbing telecommunications towers in Dallas Texas—a job that would carry him to new cities for the next two decades.
- 1995 – Fort Lauderdale, Florida
- 1997 – 2002 – Charlotte, North Carolina
- 1999 – Split time among Nashville, Kentucky, and North Carolina, performing nightly on Music Row while living in a modest hotel room, started his first band, The Jim Duff Band
- 2000 – 2001 – Puerto Rico, consulting telecom builds for Sprint
- 2001 – Burnside, Kentucky, to be near his young son Waylon
- 2002 – Los Angeles, California, writing songs and chasing side gigs; appeared as a guitar-carrying extra in Surviving Christmas (2004) staring Ben Affleck
- 2003 – Brief return to Nashville
- 2004 – West Palm Beach, Florida
- 2005 – Richmond, Kentucky, and Las Vegas, Nevada
- 2006 – Another season in Nashville
- 2008 – Danville, Kentucky, where he formed the blues-rock outfit Jim Duff and the Necessities. The Necessities became a local favorite, playing festivals and jam-packed barrooms until 2012. Also formed a 501c"3" called the Danville Blues Society, which raised money for the Danville high school music department.
Cincinnati and entrepreneurship
In 2012 Duff settled in Cincinnati, Ohio and founded Field Dailies, (https://www.fielddailies.com) and worked along side his oldest son, Waylon Duff. Field Dailies is a field-service software start-up that was later acquired by Ritel Inc. Though the tech world kept him busy, songwriting remained the center of his life.
A fight for lifeIn October 2018 Duff was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma that had spread to his brain, lung, liver, and spine. Under the care of Dr. Philip D. Leming, and his team of healthcare professionals, he underwent brain surgery, forty-five radiation treatments, chemotherapy, and two years of intensive immunotherapy that turned his hair and skin snow-white. Throughout treatment he continued to write, penning the uplifting anthem “Lift You Up” for the medical teams, friends, and family who stood by him. By 2021 Duff reached full remission, crediting faith, music, and relentless support for pulling him through. During that time, when he thought he might die, Duff exited both the telecom and the software industries to focus on his health.
River Cities Records and the next chapter
Duff spent 2022 and 2023 crafting new songs and remixing older masters. In 2025 he signed a record deal with River Cities Records, which began releasing remastered editions of his extensive catalogue with upgraded audio, new artwork, and liner-notes that trace the arc of his life. That same year he launched the “Do It For Life” tour, bringing fresh energy to venues across the United States and reconnecting with fans who had followed his journey from Kentucky barns to California freeways.
Poetry and parallel art
Music is only one avenue for Duff’s storytelling. His poetry collection Pantheon of the Senses (Olympia Publishers, 2023) gives voice to personified forces such as Love, Reason, and Industry, offering reflections on mortality, wonder, and the human spirit. Written during cancer treatment, the book stands beside his albums as a testament to hope and imagination.
Today
Now based in Cincinnati, Duff writes and records every day in a small home studio filled with guitars, mandolins, and well-worn notebooks. He is the proud father of Waylon (1993), Olivia “Liv” (2002), and McMalcolm (2014). Since 2024 he has been in a serious relationship that, like much of his life, fuels new songs and chapters yet to be written. From Appalachian front porches to West Coast highways, from tower tops to hospital rooms, Jim Duff’s story is a testament to endurance, independence, and the power of a song well written.
Jim Duff Song List by Year
1998-1999
3‑Piece Suit; Gemmy; Grubsenyaw; Head Up; Hero; Hickory Dickory Dock; Innocence Lost; Leavin’ (Leaving); One Hundred Clear Fork Road; Picture of Love; Services Rendered; Who’da Thunk It?
2001
Dogwood; Fine Line; Handy’s Bend; Heart Land; Hit the Ground Running; Jamie’s Fool; Mountain; One More Chance; One to Grow On; Red White and Boom; Rita; Run Away; Searchin’ the Fields; Set it Free; She’s Gonna Take; Small Town; Still in Love with You; Things That Are Good For; This Is for Everything; Tippy Top
2002
Billy Went to Nashville; Dream of Loving You; Epitome of Fortuity; Fly Away; Genny; Looking for Greater Things; One Good Reason; Retirement Day
2003
Bobby Ray and Larry James; Country Boy Trying to Make a Living; Devil in Me; Drive You Off My Mind; Hollywood Couldn’t Kick the Country Out of Me; I Got a Girl; I Could Never Tell Her No; Judge Me; Nothing Guaranteed; Out With the Old; Over the Side; Perfect Man; Portrait of Me; Reach for Me; Reflection of a Fool; Rise Up; Save Your Children; Since the Beginning of Time; What Did I Do?
2006
Plan B; Twirl You Around; Wind It On Down; Wish I Had a Girl
2007
Forgive Myself; La da De Da; Nanny Lou; Never Enough Time; Never Tell Her No; Whiskey Christmas
2008
Because of You; Best Thing About My Baby; Bill; Country Drive; Day Time TV; Freight Train Honey; Good to the Bone; Greek Supper; I Gotta Know; Jimi Jam; Sing Me Something; Solid as a Rock; Star Gazer; Walking; Way You Look at Me; What Do They Know That I Don’t Know
2009
Let Me Lead You; Sing Me Home Nashville
2011
Along for the Ride; Bubbles
2012
Big Bag; Billy; Free Walking; Happy Go Lucky; High Step; Midnight Jazz; Midnight Piano; Parallel Dimensions; Trying to Make a Living
2013
Blue Sun; Duff the Black; Flight to Hell; Little Mex; Real Love; Song of Reighlon
2014
Beginning Cue; Bourbon on Rocks; Boy Country Cue; Country Swamp Cue; Feel the Groove; Fight Along Evil; Nat King; Take My Heart
2015
Jazz Craz; Movement; Rain Dance
2016
Daddy’s Little Girl; Death Drives the Carriage; He Went West; Music Man; My Salvation; Rest Easy; She Won’t Let You Love Me; What’s Left; Without a Trace
2017
Texas Will Have to Wait; Try to Love Again
2018
Back to You; Can’t Make You Love Me; Gypsey Queen; In Cincinnati; Never Getting Over You
2019
Don’t Cry for Me; Fields of a Working Man; Love Me One More Time; Loving You Comes Easy; More Than Love
2020
Amongst the Living; Still Standing; What’s Left
2021
Age of Harmony; Back to the One; California Train; Cosmic Vagabond; Do It for Life; Lift You Up; Love One Another
2022
Song of Reighlon
2023
Cryin’ Shame; Left Turn to Cleveland; Ol’ Cowboy; Revolutionary Bums
2024
Bad Memories; My Work; Song of Lavaughn; Song of Procadius; This Old Hill; Thursday Wants to Be a Song
2025
Better Christmas; Farewell Elkin; It Was You; My Life Starts With You; New York City Dream; Wait for You in Heaven