Joey Gilmore got to Phil-LA of Soul Records through Frank Williams, the South Florida producer and label owner. Joey’s first releases were on Frank Williams’s Saadia label, which were picked up by Phil-LA of Soul for national exposure. Joey was a member of Frank Williams’s Rocketeers and worked in the studio with Williams and his productions.
Joey Gilmore got his start at the age of 14. He was playing a gas station opening in his native South Florida, which the police came and broke up because blacks and whites were dancing together. Orphaned at a young age, he found the guitar as a way out of migrant work picking oranges and beans in central Florida. Apart from his duty in the Navy, he has earned a living going on 50 years as a musician.
In pre-integration times, he worked both sides of the tracks and found that he prospered in both. In those days, it was sometimes easier to have a following on each side because the audiences were more focused and promoters could reach out to their specific targets.
Integrated times led to a double focus, where Joey is hailed in the Blues societies, where in 2006 he won the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Joey attributes his success in this arena to the support of the Florida Blues Society. At the same time, he books other venues as an R&B artist for that audience, though he is usually playing the same music, which consists of original songs as well as covers as varied as Tyrone Davis, Motown, Elmore James, Freddie King and Albert King.
