With a sound as sultry as a summer afternoon, Joe gracefully wraps his voice around smooth, R&B melodies. He generates sparks of emotional electricity, through both his words and music. "I want to bring out more romance in R&B," he says. "I love to write songs with sweet melodies, songs that are going to be sketched into a person's mind in pure feelings." Music has always been a central part of Joe's life. The son of two preachers, Joe was always singing, playing guitar or directing the choir in his parents' Pentecostal Church in Opelika, Alabama. Gospel greats like Commission, the Winans, Clark Sisters and Vanessa Bell Armstrong, as well as soul legends Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke provided constant inspiration. However, it wasn't until Joe discovered Bobby Brown, Guy and Keith Sweat that he recognized his own calling: as a singer and a songwriter. "By the time I was 16, I was playing in a 7-piece band in local clubs from 9 pm till 4 am, covering Johnny Gill, Bobby Brown and Babyface tunes," he says. "I was like a DJ, a vocal DJ." After graduating from high school, Joe moved back and forth between Alabama and Georgia, writing music, singing and doing odd jobs. Then one day, he took a life-altering risk and purchased a one-way bus ticket to New Jersey where he knew some people who knew some people in the music business. Although closer to fulfilling his ambitions, Joe's longed-for break was still to come. In the meantime, he worked at a gospel music store where his encyclopedic knowledge of the genre came in handy, and played guitar for a local church. Through the church he met Keith Miller and Noel Gorey who introduced Joe to record producer Vincent Herbert, with whom he recorded a three-song demo. Soon after, Tse Williams signed Joe to a publishing deal with Zomba. He made his recording debut with the track "All The Things You Want to Do," on the soundtrack to the movie "Don't Be A Menace..."
