RICHMOND, Va. -- Those who make their way into Old Towne Petersburg have likely had the chance to hear Gil Edwards before you see him.
"I could hear him, I could feel his spirit and it spoke to me," Becky Wyatt, one of Edwards' fans said.
Becky isn't alone in her fandom.
"People say, man, we thought that was a nice CD or something playing, but it's a guy singing," Gil said.
While it's not Winslow, Arizona, Gil stands on the corner by the Dixie Restaurant almost every day.
"At times, pretty good traffic," Gil said.
It's at that corner where people hear him singing most often.
"Just to kinda share what I do, you know, my gift, which I feel singing is my gift," Gil said.
For Matt Lively who is painting a mural across the street, Gil's singing is a constant background serenade while he works.
"I get serenaded every day," Lively said. "It's been luxurious hearing Gilmore sing to me every day and each song at the end, I clap and he responds to me. It's like being at a free concert except I'm up on the stage."
Gil's love of music started at an early age.
"When I grew up listening to the radio, WRVA, WANT, out of Richmond and I heard songs and I said man if I had the music, I could sing just like that," Gil said.
Most days, Gil's performances catch him a bit of money.
"I can pick up a few dollars if some people come by and some days it's not much and some days, it goes pretty well," Gil said.
The corner that he's stationed at also gives him something of an advantage.
"I know I'm not going to impress everybody, but there's a segment that catches the songs or catches the voice," Gil said.
One of these impressed people was Karrie Crocker.
"We saw Gil on the very day we closed on our house," Crocker said. "He just melted my heart."
On the night before her wedding, guests from around the country were in her home.
"What can we show them, the place we decided to call home. What's better than the neighborhood crooner who melts your heart on the way to dinner or the farmer's market so we hired him," Crocker said.
Gil has spent decades singing, starting out in the church. While he enjoys the corner and some inside gigs, he'd love to one day try to make it to Las Vegas or New York.
