"Awesome Joe" Connelly (born 1965) is a successful barbershop quartet lead singer, competition judge, and full-time coach for various barbershop quartets. Connelly gained recent fame for being the first person ever to become a Barbershop Harmony Society International Championship gold medalist four times, first with Interstate Rivals in 1987 at the age of 22, then with Keepsake in 1992, with Platinum in 2000, and with Old School in 2011. In 2000 he had already become the first person to win the gold medal three times.
A second-generation barbershopper, son of international quartet medalist Mike Connelly, Joe spent many years in Tampa, Florida, but currently lives in Falls Church, Virginia, though he also spends time in his home town of Cincinnati, Ohio as the director of the Southern Gateway Chorus. He coaches men's and women's barbershop quartets and choruses around the world full-time, becoming one of the few barbershoppers who has managed to turn his hobby into a profession.[1] He most recently competed with Old School, which took the silver medal in international competition in 2009 and 2010, before achieving the gold medal in 2011.