Press Release from Dragon's Domain: Dragon’s Domain Records presents THE JOEL GOLDSMITH COLLECTION, VOLUME 1, featuring the previously unreleased scores to Jim (PIRANHACONDA) Wynorski’s gentle family comedy HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (1993, aka LITTLE MISS MILLIONS) and Tony (HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II) Randel’s revenge thriller ONE GOOD TURN (1996).
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS starred a young Jennifer Love-Hewitt as a millionaire heiress who runs away from her step-parents to find her real mother, prompting an all-out pursuit to find her. The latter is a revenge thriller with an unusual twist, as a reunion between a guy and the man who saved his life years earlier becomes a deadly quest for unfulfilled vengeance. HOME FOR CHRISTMAS’s music is mostly written for a rhythm section/rock combo with a small orchestral ensemble, giving the film a lighthearted, toe-tapping, and forward-moving vibe; while Joel’s music for ONE GOOD TURN is quite at home in dark thriller territory, offset by a sublime love theme. The small orchestral score is suspenseful and provocative.
Joel Goldsmith was born in Los Angeles in 1957, the third of four children of singer Sharon Hennagin and legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith. Joel quickly followed in his father’s musical footsteps, favoring electronic instruments. His first film scoring credit, shared with his friend Richard Band, was for the science fiction thriller LASERBLAST (1978). Joel proved to be a versatile compose on hist own, both in the electronic and orchestral realms, composing a number of feature and television films throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. These ranged from the sci-fi series SUPER FORCE (1990), Roland Emmerich’s early science fiction thriller MOON 44 (1990), TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES (1993) and WITCHBLADE (2000), the family-friendly drama SHILOH (1996) and its 1999 sequel, KULL THE CONQUEROR (1997), the 2003 miniseries HELEN OF TROY, and several iterations of the STARGATE TV series (1997-2011). Sadly, Joel passed away at the age of 54 in 2012, from cancer. His last score was for the unreleased post-apocalyptic TV pilot, ECHOES.
With THE JOEL GOLDSMITH COLLECTION, VOLUME 1, Dragon’s Domain Records presents the world premiere release of Joel Goldsmith’s music for HOME FOR CHRISTMAS and ONE GOOD TURN, mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland. The booklet contains liner notes written by author Randall D. Larson.