I'm Joe Godfrey, a musician, composer, producer, audio engineer, educator and aviator.
This site showcases my sound work, shares insights from my experiences, and keeps you updated on upcoming gigs and projects.
Very sad to hear that legendary jazz pianist Mike Wofford has passed. I didn’t do jazz gigs with him – I’m not in that league jazz-wise. Big ears. That’s what musicians say when a player has so much command of his instrument that he can interpret a song in many styles or at any tempo. […]
I run into aviation people and music people who wonder how a guy who worked in music could wind up in charge of engine data analysis for Savvy. Easy. It’s just numbers changing over time. If you’re not a musician, you’ve probably heard that music is math. If you are a musician, you’re well aware […]
I was really fortunate to get my foot into the music production scene – aka the jingle business – in Chicago. It was fiercely competitive, and there was plenty of backstabbing to go around, but most of the people I worked with were supportive and welcoming to the new kid. But I had my eye on […]
The San Diego Film Consortium held its award ceremony On June 24, 2023 and I won for Best Sound Design. This is a screenshot from the awards telecast which you can view here. Sound Design nominees are at 44:20. You can watch the film’s director Justin Burquist win his award for Best Narrative Short Film […]
It’s Jerry Goldsmith’s birthday and it reminded me of a story. I never met him, but I was in the same room with him – briefly. In 1985 I was new to LA and wanted to get to know the scoring rooms. I had been working at Group IV mostly because (1) Dennis Sands worked […]
I sat there stunned. Did Silverman really call Hal Riney “the devil”? True, that in the next breath he also called him “the angel” but that seemed grudging — like he remembered he was on camera and that somebody might see it. I backed up the dvd just to be sure. Yep, he said it. […]
This is the opening track from NCR’s 1998 convention. It’s a little over 5 minutes. But the drum part makes it worth it. By 1998. I was pretty good at programming drums but I knew I wanted a real player to replace my demo drums. Todd Suchermann was and still is the drummer for Styx. […]
In the mid-80s Science Applications International Corp started producing a video annual report. It’s a very innovative company in this was a lot more interesting than a glossy brochure full of statistics. I started working on this annual project in 1986 and I did them every year until they stopped doing them in 2004. That’s […]
Keep On Believin’. In 1994 the players went out on strike. John Moores bought the team and gave the ad account to DiZinno Thompson. I wrote a big orchestral piece kind of like Randy Newman’s score for “The Natural”. This isn’t that. In the year after the strike the Padres did well. They played well […]
In 2000 my client wanted to use Nickel Creek for a Kansas Health Foundation campaign. We had several :30 TV commercials and one :60 radio. This is the 60. Chris Theile, Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins were just kids when we did this. Soundcloud link
One of my favorite tracks. I wrote the tune on piano for a different ad, then had to adapt it for their online banking. So the brief was “a little bit electronic but retain the folksiness of the original.” Yikes. It’s electric harp – thanks Andreas Vollenvieder for opening that door – and fretless bass […]
This is the American FlyBoys big band playing Island Stream My solo starts at 2:49 Soundcloud link
