We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful John Goowin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with John below.

John, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Being a songwriter means working on a lot of projects, some of which never turn into commercial releases. It’s all speculative. When songs I work on are released commercially, it adds a special meaning to all the work involved. Feel free to ask me about those kinds of projects I’ve been involved in.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have spent most of my life writing songs, but I’m also a visual artist in my free time. I got into songwriting by learning to play some guitar chords, enough to be able to write a song with. From that point, I started writing complete songs and experiencing the joy that doing that gave me. As well as loving how it felt to write songs, other people heard my early songs and loved them, which further encouraged me to keep going. I put all my energy into writing and didn’t pursue the path of performing my own work, but eventually I became a songwriter whose songs were being recorded by other people. Eventually, well known people started recording songs I’d written and I also had songs placed in tv shows and movies. One of the songs I co-wrote for a movie (Crazy Heart) won a Grammy in the best soundtrack category. I grew up listening to all styles of music (rock, blues, country, folk, spirituals), so writing in all styles came very naturally to me. I’m proud to have that I’ve had songs I worked on recorded many known artists in most genres of music. I write songs alone and also co-write. When I co-write, I try to make my contribution fit the needs of the recording artist I’m working with. I’ve always been more on an artistic songwriter than a commercial one, meaning that to tell the truth in my songs has always been more important to me than conforming to some standard which gains commercial success at the expense of writing about life in real terms.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I guess that my goal, thought it became a subconscious one, was to write songs that had two main qualities – truth and beauty. Those were the main qualities of the songs I loved when I was growing up and listening to early rock and roll on the radio. I grew up in an era when record companies really had to move people emotionally in order to sell records. When I was seven, I first heard Elvis on the radio and immediately loved what I heard. I listened to all of the hits songs on the radio during that pre-Beatles era and then, when the Beatles appeared, I was 14 and I got to hear all of the songs of the 1960s. A lot of those songs were very artistically written and performed. A lot of people were seriously committed to the personal music statements they were making as songwriters and musicians. Popular music was becoming a world class art form, as witnessed in the work of Bob Dylan. One thing about the songs I found myself loving is that they seemed very honest and real to me. They also had great beauty because of the way the music was written and played. So, ‘truth and beauty’ became a goal in writing songs.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

One resource I wish I knew about earlier in my creative journey was how much I loved to perform my songs in public. For most of my life, my main focus was just writing the songs and recording them in my own space. Not being a performer didn’t seem strange to me. My favorite composers of great Broadway musicals didn’t go out and perform their songs. They wrote them and other people performed them. When I finally discovered how much I loved to perform in front of a live audience, I was kind of…..old. About seven years ago, my friend Jeff Bridges, who records and performs a lot of my songs, encouraged me to join him and his band on stage to sings some songs I’d written at a couple shows they were playing in southern California. At first I was afraid and declined the invitation but eventually, I decided to just go for it and do it. I was surprised to discover that when I got on the stage, I wasn’t nervous or scared. I was not only fearless, but I was bold and I loved the whole experience. In fact, the result of that experience was that I discovered what I think my true, real calling was – to be a performing artist. The audience loved our performances and I really regretted that I didn’t start performing my songs in my 20s instead of my 60s.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodwinartgallery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johngoodwin3
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPMTaKkWEe19wPsQhBaXaUEagnkJLpSVE
• Other: visual art website https://www.goodwinartgallery.com

Image Credits
None to report