Joe Gilchrist lived a full and fun life, and he knew it
Joe Gilchrist lived a full and fun life, and he knew it
By Fran Thompson
His nephews Lane and Mike were friends from my time in Gulf Breeze. I knew his brother Lane, a city councilman and later mayor of Gulf Breeze, while working the City Hall beat at the late-great Sentinel newspaper in the 1980’s.
I had tossed a mullet from Florida into Alabama, and ran four miles before drinking beers well into the evening on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s at the Flora-Bama. A carload of us would take the long way home to P-Cola Beach just to stop there after spanking the Battleship boys in rugby over in Mobile.
But I didn’t befriend Joe Gilchrist until early in 1990, and it was almost immediately after I moved four miles to the east of the now world famous bistro to revive a newspaper.
I was struck almost immediately by his egalitarian nature and how he booked musicians every night in the winter even though they mostly played to empty the genre mainstream had a huge impact on the Flora-Bama’s gross sales.
Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Hall and John Prine played there in the early years. Kenny Chesney, John Rich and Tanya Tucker came later. Midland played a no cover show there on a Saturday afternoon a couple months before they played the CMTs.
Joe invited two of his songwriting Nashcat friends, Red Lane and Hank Cochran, to come vacation here in the off-season, and they invited other songwriters. So, Joe decided to rent out the Pensacola Saenger to showcase these legends.
After one year, 1984, in downtown Pensacola, he wisely decided it would be way more fun to lose $75K throwing a songwriters fest at his own bar.
The Frank Brown Songwriters Fest was too good an idea to not share with the rest of the Gulf Coast, but the eight or so years when the only stage was in that richly intimate inside room at the ‘Bama were particularly special.
Joe would almost always end the evenings by buying a last call round. It’s where locals got to know Larry Jon Wilson and Alan Rhody on stage and in the audience.
There were many nights when we thought there wasn’t a more fun place to be anywhere. Joe tried to make each of his days like that, as one of his many euphonisms was his belief that “fun is fair.’’
There didn’t seem to be any separation between how Joe ran his business and how he lived his life. He believed in supporting his community and being fair to everybody.
During the 10 years we were both on the Perdido Chamber Board, Joe was always the first to step up and sponsor everything from snowbird welcome parties to live music at chamber socials to military appreciation galas.
An original member of the Pirates of Lost Treasure, he may have the record for the total number of krewes that he graced with his presence at their balls.
I’m sure he stressed over things. But I never saw it. I saw him more as a stress conduit, passing it on to his kind assistant, Connie Bloom.
Joe’s solution to most dilemmas was to buy a round of beverages, ask Ken Lambert to get up and play a few songs and then look at the situation from a new perspective.
Bad investment choices after Hurricane Ivan almost cost Joe the Flora-Bama. For those that were not here, the Flora-Bama was leveled. Perdido Key Dr. washed away.
It was during that long Ivan recovery process that Joe did his best work as a community leader. He hosted a block party almost immediately after FDOT put up a temporary road that could get people from Perdido Key to Innerarity. The ‘Bama possible-probables played from a flatbed parked in what is now the Publix parking lot, and we sipped booze that survived Ivan the ‘Bama.
I was still picking up stands from people’s yards miles away from where they belonged. But Joe stayed after me to get my newspaper back in print, making it very clear that I should let him know if I needed financial help to do so.
I don’t know if it was irony, luck or fate, but John McInnis, the man who would make sure the Flora-Bama would remain a honky-tonk, helped me connect again with our readership. A mutual friend, John Brunick, told me John was the man to talk to about distributing my newspapers from the toll both at the Foley Beach Express. John’ company built the toll road. One phone call is all it took for a man that I had never met to gave me reason enough to get back to work.
My first post Ivan issue is still my all-time favorite. The cover had a picture of Joe’s friends, Blitz Poston and Randy Cudd, in front of the Welcome to Perdido Key sign at the west end of the Theo Baars Bridge. The cutline: “Excuse our Mess. We are remodeling.’’
Joe loved it. He said it was definitely worthy of a spot on the wall. He knew there was healing power in a good laugh.
It was not a certainty that the Flora-Bama was going to come back. There could be a condo there now. Amazingly, John McInnis knew what the place represented to so many. Those are the original bricks on the outside front walls. It’s the same main bar, and many of the same pictures are in the same places. But the bar is 18 ft. above where it was pre—Ivan.
Some of the bras hanging above the dome stage might even be pre-Ivan.
Pat McClellan, the man Joe snatched from Seville Quarter and gave equity to in the 1980’s, is still part of the ownership group. The fourth partner, Cam Price, is a West Point grad, an Army Ranger and as committed to making our military part of the ‘Bama family as Joe and Pat, a Navy vet.
Joe said he brought Pat in to run the back of the house so he could schmooze out front, but Pat was a world class schmoozer himself. Pat and Joe were still part owners and free to schmooze away when the ‘Bama re-opened.
I took pictures of Joe three times in April of 2022: At a release party for Mike Cotton’s documentary about him, at the Mullet Toss and at his birthday party.
We talked about taking a group to San Diego. We made a bet about whether Joe Biden would make it through his four year term. Like always, Joe bought beverages for everybody within a reasonable radius of him at the bar.
Joe partied harder than most. He is more generous than most, and he did more to support and promote live music and songwriting as a creative art on the Al-FL Gulf Coast than any other person ever.
Joe took musicians with him to France to party with the artist Nall twice. He took musicians and a group of friends to NYC as soon as possible after 9-11 to support that city and its first responders.
I saw the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, in front of about 40,000 people, change the words to their signature song at City Stages in Birmingham: “There’s a better world awaiting down at The Flora-Bama.”
Jimmy Buffett gave Joe a shout out from the stage at a sold out Madison Square Garden right there above Grand Central Station in New York City. Not bad for a kid from Pensacola High.
Hundreds of times (really) I jumped up on the ‘Bama stage to sing a couple obscure Irish ballads when my possible/probable friends would take a break. Joe hated that and would offer to pay my tab if I promised not to sing.
One year I scraped together sponsorship money for one of the songwriter’s fest nights at the ‘Bama. They gave me my own reserved table, a banner behind the stage and a few minutes of mic time. I told Joe I would not sing. But I lied.
He helped employees and friends as well as other local businesses get through emergencies. He paid for employees’ kids’ college education. He was well known for his $100 handshakes. It was his nature and, I think, he also saw it as a way to pay forward what the Tampary brothers did for him.
I loved living on Pensacola Beach in the 1980’s. Via DeLuna was still a two-lane road. Rents were reasonable. But living on Perdido Key was immediately more fun because I was only four miles from the coolest bar in the world and its incredible array of characters.
Because of Joe, I can use the quote, “No sir, but I saw him spit it out,’’ when telling a story about one of those characters.
Because of Joe, I was able to meet Kenny Stabler, my football hero as a teen. I was able to have my name included in a Rusty McHugh song. I was able to hear John Joiner play guitar at least twice a week for about eight straight. years.
Joe used to tell me to make sure I charged an appropriate fee for advertising. And I did charge Joe for the full page he bought apologizing for his negativity before Kenny Chesney’s nationally televised Flora-Bama Jama that brought 40,000 folks together on the ‘Bama beach in August of 2014. It was spectacular and is now part of Joe’s legacy even though he did not like the idea.
A picture of Joe’s musical hero, Mickey Newbury that I took still hangs behind a stage at the ‘Bama. Another of Joe’s favorite hanging pics is a shot of Joe, Pat and the most famous bartender in Pensacola history, Trader Jon, holding up mullets.
Like Trader Jon’s before it, the Flora-Bama is a bar that people enter expecting to have a good time. That is important. Hundreds of couples first met there. Hundreds more friendships were forged there.
The culture Joe created at the ‘Bama – the love for life, love for live music and love for others – is the fabric of the bistro’s existence for regulars.
And that part of Joe’s legacy will continue onward.