ORANGE BEACH, Ala. -- Joe Gilchrist, longtime

owner as well as faithful patron of the iconic Flora-Bama lounge,

likes challenges.

And in these next few days he has a challenge

for the people living in both parts of the world-famous beach

club’s name.

“I’d like to get Alabama and Florida cranked

up,” he gushed during an interview before the after party for the

Frank Brown Songwriters Festival at Flippers in Bear Point.

What he’s working on is a “potential adventure

in the works.”

Joe is retracing his steps of 10 years ago

when he took a group of musicians and just regular folks to New

York City to stir up some revelry in the post-9/11 stupor gripping

the city.

“When I tried to get people to go up there

neither the governor of Florida or Alabama seemed to have very much

vision,” he said. “I said ‘here’s a great way for your states to be

able to make a national statement to get behind the people of New

York who I felt took a helluva hit for the rest of the

country.”

“Gulf Coast Loves New York” 2002 was born. Joe

brought with him about 100 visitors, Gulf Coast musicians among

them, donning T-shirts with that slogan on the front as they moved

from music venue to music venue playing and showing support for the

stricken city.

Now he wants to do it again.

“Gulf Coast Loves New York,” the 2012 version,

will be from Feb. 1-5. At least four musicians, Chris Newbury, Buzz

Kiefer, Mike Locklin and Bo Roberts are set to go.

Joe wants more musicians and as many other

folks as he can gather to go along with them to make that statement

again.

This time around, Joe hopes it will be even

bigger if he can get the word spread far and wide enough. For the

past few of weeks he’s going to be beating the bushes, slapping

folks on the back and sharing cocktails while promoting the Gulf

Coast tribute for New York.

The whole philosophy behind Joe’s 40 years at

the Flora-Bama has been having fun, but also being a good citizen.

This New York trip will certainly be about both.

“If you can every combine the opportunity to

enjoy life while you are doing something that’s responsible and the

right thing to do, then why not?” he says with a shrug.

A couple of nights already planned during the

trip are sure to create special memories. Chris Newbury will have

the opportunity to play in a club his famous father and Gulf Coast

legend Mickey Newbury played in during his career.

“On Thursday night (Feb. 2) they’re going to

give us the stage at the Bitter End from 9 o’clock until closing,

whatever we want to do,” Joe said. “What I’d like to do, if we take

up money at the door, donate to some charity in New York.

“On the same night, we will have musicians in

the Red Lion Inn, which is next door. I hope we have lines coming

out of both places of people wanting to get in.”

Another special venue will be the VFW in which

is a basement club in Harlem.

“That’s a jazz venue,” Joe said. “I told them

we don’t play jazz, but we will play some good ol’ American music

and have some really good musicians playing it.

“He said ‘jazz is good ol’ American music. You

guys will do fine.”

The 2002 trip created many special memories

for the group, including a concert featuring a Gulf Coast music

icon giving them a shout-out from the stage.

“I went to two Jimmy Buffett concerts at

Madison Square Garden and Jimmy Buffett recognized us from the

stage,” Joe said. “We held up big signs that said ‘Flora-Bama loves

New York’ and we had 200 people come over to talk to us in the

audience that said ‘I love the Flora-Bama.’”

Joe almost teared up when recalling how he was

given, and accepted, an invitation to march in the St. Patrick’s

Day Parade with police officers from Nassau County.

“There were millions of New Yorkers on the

street,” he recalled. “It was an incredible emotional experience to

march down the street and see all the respect the people gave to

the policemen and the fire department people. I was lucky just to

kind of march along with them.”

This week he’ll turn his attention toward

making more memories with this trip and hopefully with many more

people.