Will Jennings

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Will Jennings
Born (1944-06-27) June 27, 1944 (age 79)
Kilgore, Texas, United States
Nationality American
Education Stephen F. Austin State University
Occupation Songwriter
Known for

Wilbur H. "Will" Jennings (born June 27, 1944 in Kilgore, Texas, United States) is an American songwriter, who is popularly known for writing the lyrics for "My Heart Will Go On", the theme for the film Titanic. He has been inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and has won several awards including three Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards.[1]

Life and education

Jennings attended school just outside Tyler, Texas, in the nearby Chapel Hill Independent School District. In 1967, Jennings earned his B.A. from Stephen F. Austin State University, located in Nacogdoches, Texas.[2] He then taught at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire for three years.[3]

Career

Throughout his career, Jennings has written for a wide variety of artists including Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Joe Sample, Rodney Crowell, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett, Barry Manilow and Roy Orbison.[4][5][6]

With Steve Winwood, Jennings wrote a series albums including, Arc of a Diver, Talking Back to the Night and Back in the High Life, an album which contained the hits "Higher Love", "The Finer Things", and "Back in the High Life Again". Winwood won the Record Of The Year and Outstanding Male Vocal Performance. Both Jennings and Winwood were nominated for the Song of the Year award for "Higher Love."[7]

With Joe Sample, Jennings wrote "Street Life" (a world-wide hit for the Crusaders with singer Randy Crawford) and several songs for various albums by the Crusaders for guest vocalists, including Joe Cocker ("I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today"), Bill Withers ("Soul Shadows"), and Nancy Wilson ("The Way It Goes (Crusaders album)"). Jennings and Sample also wrote the better part of three albums for B.B. King, Midnight Believer in 1978, Take It Home in 1979, and There is Always One More Time in 1991.[8][9]

Richard Kerr and Jennings wrote "Somewhere in the Night" and "Looks Like We Made It" for Barry Manilow and "I'll Never Love This Way Again" for Dionne Warwick.[10][11]

Jennings has collaborated on many songs for films, the most notable songs being "Up Where We Belong" for An Officer and a Gentleman, a song which won the Academy Award in America and the BAFTA (British Academy Award) in the United Kingdom and was a number one hit for Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. In 1997, Jennings wrote the world-wide number one Céline Dion hit "My Heart Will Go On" for the film Titanic with his collaborator James Horner. They won the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Song from a Motion Picture.[12]

Among his other collaborations were two albums written with Jimmy Buffett and Michael Utley, Riddles in the Sand and The Last Mango in Paris. Jennings also wrote several songs for Roy Orbison's King Of Hearts album.[13][14]

In Nashville, Jennings wrote hits with Rodney Crowell, including "Many a Long and Lonesome Highway", "What Kind of Love", and "Please Remember Me", a number one country hit for Tim McGraw.[15]

Jennings also wrote "Tears in Heaven" with Eric Clapton, which won song of the Year and also won the Ivor Novello award for best song from a film.[16]

Teaming with James Horner and Mariah Carey, Jennings wrote the lyrics for the central song in How The Grinch Stole Christmas, "Where Are You Christmas?", sung by a character within the film and by Faith Hill at the end of the film. In 2002, Horner and Jennings contributed a song for the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind.[12]

In 2002, Peter Wolf’s new album, Sleepless, appeared with positive reviews. The album featured six songs written by Jennings and Wolf, who collaborated previously on Fool's Parade (1999) on Mercury Records.[17]

Jennings and Joe Sample, the keyboard player for the Crusaders, go back to 1978 and began by writing the Midnight Believer album for B.B. King and then wrote the hit "Street Life" for the Crusaders album of the same name. Jennings and Sample also wrote "One Day I'll Fly Away", originally sung by Crawford, which was featured in the film Moulin Rouge!, along with another of Jennings’s songs, "Up Where We Belong". In the film "One Day I'll Fly Away" was sung by Nicole Kidman and, in March 2002, was released as a single in the UK from the second soundtrack album to emerge from Moulin Rouge.[18]

Albums

Hits

Awards

He has received the following major awards:

References

  1. ↑ IMDb
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 IMDb
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External links

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