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.
Lately you can’t swing a cat without hitting an article or a podcast about how AI is going to change everything. Easy, cat lovers – it’s just an expression – nobody’s swinging any cats. My impression so far has been mixed. I’ve seen it do an amazing landscape proposal based on a xeriscape philosophy and […]
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 was cruising along staying busy playing guitar on my jazz gigs. Every now and then there would be a more pop-jazz gig to add to my Sunday morning gig at Good Sam Episcopal Church. And the occasional Bluegrass session. And out of the blue I got asked to play bass in a ZZ Top […]
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 […]