For the many who have already discovered plain Joe though, he is the sound of steamy romantic tunes like No One Else Comes Close, I Wanna Know, Treat Her Like a Lady and I Believe in You. The wallop that Joe packs as a music artist can be described as that of a male Toni Braxton. In fact one of Joe’s earliest breaks was as co-writer and co-producer of Braxton’s Love Affair. He can also be considered a new millennium version of Teddy Pendergrass, Lionel Richie, Luther Vandross, George Benson, Barry White and all those other great soul balladeers.
Smooth-sounding Joe comes from the US South. He was born in Georgia and raised in Alabama. His parents were both Pentecostal ministers and the only music he was permitted to listen to as a child were gospel songs. It was in the family church that Joe learned to sing, play the guitar and eventually lead the choir. Of course, it was inevitable that he would discover other sounds and when he did they were the likes of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. He joined a local R&B group when he was 16 and expanded his repertoire to include Babyface, Bobby Brown and others.
He took the first step towards becoming a professional music artist when he moved to New Jersey. With the help of producer Vincent Herbert, he cut his first demo, which was picked up by Jive Records, home of the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync and Britney Spears. Things didn’t happen to Joe the way they did to these teen acts, but no matter he was writing and producing and these jobs brought out some interesting results like Dreamings for the 1996 Olympics album, All the Things (Your Man Won’t Do,) which landed in the soundtrack of the movie Don’t Be a Menace, Braxton’s Love Affair and others.
All That I Am in 1997 was his first album for Jive and Don’t Wanna Be a Player from the movie Booty Call was the hit single. These releases established him as plain Joe, singer of romantic ballads. Then there was his collaboration with Mariah Carey, Thank God I Found You, which gained him considerable exposure. This was followed by I Wanna Know, a song, he did for another movie The Wood and which was included in his first multi-Platinum seller My Name is Joe.
Interest in Joe has also since multiplied several times over, more so these past few weeks when a reworked edition of his Stutter with Mystical made number one in Billboard’s Hot 100 list. Joe has been holding the top slot for four weeks now. A threat looms from the new Janet Jackson release but a month at the top is not bad at all for a guy named Joe.
Joe albums available in the local music shops are All That I Am and My Name is Joe. The first one is a special double CD edition that contains Don’t Wanna Be a Player, Good Girls, The Love Scene, Sanctified Girl (Can’t Fight This Feeling), Whatcha Gonna Do, All The Things (Your Man Won’t Do), No One Else Comes Close, Come Around, U Shoula Told Me (U Had a Man) and Love Don’t Make No Sense.
My Name is Joe has the original version of Stutter, plus Somebody Gotta Be on Top, Table for Two, I Wanna Know, Treat Her Like a Lady, Get Crunk Tonight, 563 (Joe), Peep Show, One Life Stand, Black Hawk, I Believe in You with ’N Sync, So Beautiful and Thank God I Found You with Mariah Carey and Nas.