Joe Johnston is a film producer, author, journalist, songwriter, music producer, advertising creator, and marketer, paving his career with creative mileposts like leading the team that invented McDonald’s Happy Meal.
Joe is now teaming with legendary producer Doug Claybourne (The Black Stallion, The Mask of Zorro, North Country, Rumblefish, The War of the Roses) to produce the dramatic feature movie, Rosa and Black Gold. https://www.rosaandblackgoldmovie.com/themovie
Joe has contributed to major motion picture soundtracks including 8 Seconds, Something to Talk About, Perfect Stranger, and TV shows like West Wing, J.A.G., All My Children, Faith and Hope, Nashville Now, and You Can Be A Star. He was music supervisor for Lifetime’s No Regrets. Also in TV, Joe booked and produced the Dixie Chicks’ first appearance on CMT network’s Nashville Now. He has also twice been a musical segment producer for Jerry Lewis’ March of Dimes Telethon.
He supplied graphics to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and props to Decision. He produced, wrote, and hosted Seeing is Believing, a three-season CBS affiliate health program. His documentaries include Jubilee for Fisk University, and others for various charities.
As a songwriter, music producer, and publisher he has contributed to sales of over 15 million albums on seven different record labels. His cowritten song Honestly, appeared on LeAnn Rimes’ debut album Blue, earning Billboard Music Album of the Year, and a CMT Album of the Year nomination, plus multiple Greatest Hits releases. He cowrote Mark Chesnutt’s hit single and dance hall remix, Texas Is Bigger Than It Used To Be. He contributed to The Martins’ Grammy-winning Dream Big album and he has 6 other nominations.
Joe negotiated the Dixie Chicks’ first Nashville record label deal, and has worked with stars like Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, George Straight, LeAnn Rimes, Alabama, Marty Stuart, Mark Chesnutt, T. Graham Brown, Riders in the Sky, John Anderson, and Ian Tyson. Also Pop legend Melanie (Roller Skate, Woodstock), Comic songster Tim Wilson, Jim Horn, (the Beatles), and Timothy B. Schmidt (the Eagles). Notably, he produced background vocals on 3 Platinum albums for Chesnutt.
He won Gospel music’s Dove Award, with multiple nominations and 4 other Finalist songs, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International Achievement Award. He cowrote the Christmas classic Go Tell, and Count Your Blessing, the only song to go Number One twice on the Southern Gospel charts.
Joe is known as a song scout, tracking down hits for his artists, including the title cuts of Restless Heart’s “Matters of the Heart” album and Alabama’s “Cheap Seats,” on which he played the bat cracks! When Joe couldn’t persuade Chesnutt to record “Money in the Bank,” it became a Number One for John Anderson.
He has recorded with Glen Campbell and played with Modern Jazz Quartet at Tulsa’s legendary jazz mecca The Rubiot.
Joe worked for national advertising agencies before founding Johnston Advertising, the most award-winning agency in Dallas. He has written, storyboarded, directed and produced hundreds of TV and radio commercials. His clients include McDonald’s, General Motors, Pizza Hut, Korbel Wines, KitchenAid, Hoover, B. F. Goodrich, What-a-Burger, and Braniff Airlines. As a new product specialist he introduced America’s first Mexican fast food breakfast and dessert, both for Taco Villa, leading to that chain’s acquisition by Taco Bell. When Southwest Airlines started flying outside Texas and Oklahoma, they turned to Johnston for marketing. He led Haggar Apparel’s first network TV ad campaign, and launched multiple men’s and women’s clothing lines. Joe has created campaigns for American Forces Radio and TV Services, the U.S. Army Museum, Internal Revenue Service, and U.S. Corps of Engineers.
His advertising honors include multiple Addys, multiple Tellys, the POPAI for point-of-purchase advertising, the Effie, for efficiency, and the GASPAR from the American Cancer Society. He’s appeared in the Creative Arts Annual, the AAF Advertising Hall of Fame, and multiple times in New York’s prestigious One Show.
Joe is the author of the multi-award winning Vigilante Series of books from Missouri History Museum. The Mack Marsden Murder Mystery: Vigilantism or Justice, was followed by Necessary Evil: Settling Missouri with a Rope and a Gun, and It Ends Here: Missouri’s Last Vigilante.
He released three fiction books on the same day in 2024, the Dang Book series, The Dang Prairie Arts, The Dang Love Factor, and The Dang Cookin’ Show. He also wrote He Didn’t Kill That Kid: Art Fleak and the Fight for Wayne Garrison. Also Franklin: Images of America Series, for Arcadia Press, and Jesus Would Recycle, a prophetic 2004 book on the environment. He illustrated How People Lived in the Bible for Thomas Nelson publishers, and Horses, a children’s book for Dalmation Press. Johnston e-books include Somethin’ from Nothin’: The Four Dimensions of Creativity, and How to Fail in the Music Business, Or Succeed If You’d Rather.
As a journalist, Joe’s articles have appeared in “D” Magazine, Texas Monthly, America’s Civil War, Wild West, True West, History Happens Here, and U.S. Naval History, as well as various newspapers.
Johnston has continued to mentor young talent at Oklahoma State University, North Texas State, Kent State, O’More College of Design, Nashville State Community College, and Art Institute of Tennessee. His community service includes the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, and various Indigenous charities. He’s been a horse team volunteer at Tulsa Hills Youth Ranch and Vice Chair of the Will Rogers High School Foundation. He has been a Little League coach, Boy Scout Assistant Scoutmaster and District Camping Chair, and Cub Scoutmaster.
Joe’s speaking engagements include Ghandi-King International Peace Conference, Gilcrease Museum, Missouri State Archives, and Carnton Museum. He is a member of the Will Rogers High School Hall of Fame, alongside such notables as Leon Russell, David Gates (the band Bread), and S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders).
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Joe holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Master’s in Mass Communication, both from Oklahoma State University, with post-graduate study in social psychology at Ohio University.
Joe’s ancestors are Scots-Irish, English, Swedish, and Indigenous from multiple tribes.