International award-winning country singer Eric Diamond with several of his many awards during a recent interview at the Los Alamos Daily Post newsroom. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com
Eric Diamond is named Traditional Country Music Male Vocalist of the Year during the annual Josie Music Awards on Nov. 2, 2025, at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. The Josie Music Awards celebrates independent music artists of all genres from around the world. Courtesy photo
By CAROL A. CLARK
Los Alamos Daily Post
caclark@ladailypost.com
Los Alamos native Eric Diamond was named Traditional Country Music Male Vocalist of the Year during the prestigious Josie Awards on Nov. 2, 2025, at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. The Josie Music Awards celebrates independent music artists of all genres from around the world.
“That was a nice surprise,” Diamond said during his recent interview in the Los Alamos Daily Post newsroom.
He was born in Los Alamos to Charles and Catherine Fenstermacher. Diamond recalled that his father worked as head engineer on Star Wars, with the atomic bomb and nuclear fusion at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Diamond attended Pajarito and Mountain elementary schools, Pueblo Junior High School and Los Alamos High School through his junior year. He moved to Colorado and attended Bayfield High School, where he graduated in 1984.
“I started singing in my elementary school choir when I was 10,” Diamond said. “My sister Chris played piano, and my brother Donald sang and acted. I began my music career when I was 15 in Santa Fe and Durango, Colo, adopting my stage name Eric Diamond when I was 20.”
He explained that he was drawn to country music and that western swing was his very favorite.
“The first 22 years of my career were primarily just country music,” Diamond said. “Then the last 18 years were just Western swing. In my prime, I knew 380 songs off the top of my head; I can still probably muster up over 100 songs.”
During his career Diamond and some friends formed the popular band, the Rocky Mountain Playboys, which he described as having a phenomenal following.
“We had a good run with 13 national agents booking us so that in six years in an 11 state region, we only had three weeks without a job,” he said. “At the end of those six years, I got a call informing me that my father had come down with cancer,” Diamond recalled. “I was 37, and at that time, Nashville would not sign anyone over the age of 35.”
In recent years Diamond began winning major awards. In October 2021, he was named Western Swing Male Vocalist of the Year, and received the Will Rogers Award and a yearlong recording deal from Clarksville Creative Sound Co-owner/Producer Curt Ryle. Ryle wrote 18 number one singles, including a number one hit for George Jones and produced Gold Records for Mel Tillis, Gene Watson, Trisha Yearwood, Leann Womack, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dean Dillon, and others.
In 2023, Diamond won Entertainer of the Year from Ousley, Williams and Gentry Promotions. Western Swing is the official state music of Texas and in May 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott presented Diamond with the Hero of Western Swing Award. On Oct. 5, 2024, he was inducted into the Western Swing Hall of Fame in Sacramento, Calif. Diamond also received the Singer of the Year Award in 2025 from Brokeman Radio in West Virginia.
“Eighteen years ago, I started a slow comeback in Turkey, Texas and have been singing at the festival there ever since on three out of the four stages in town,” Diamond said.
His new album, “All of Me” was the most played western swing album of 2023 in the world, he said, adding that it finished in the top five with the International Singer Songwriter Association, in the top five in the International Western Music Association, and was a top five finalist for Album of the Year at the Red Carpet Awards in the Netherlands in 2023.
“It also received a nomination for Album of the Year in 2023 with the Ameripolitans,” Diamond said. “The album also came in number 10 for Country Music Album of the Year for Outlaw Front Porch. And that got us into the People Magazine’s ‘People of Country Music’ edition in 2024.”
Diamond moved back to Los Alamos in 2020 and has no plans to leave.
“I love this community … I love the summer concerts and hope to perform there … this is my home,” he said. “This is where I am going to stay.”
Country singer Eric Diamond of Los Alamos has been inducted into the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame. Courtesy photo