Oscar-Winning Songwriter Will Jennings Passes
Will Jennings
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Will Jennings passed away on Sept. 6 at age 80.
The lyricist wrote classic country hits and had massive pop success. He won multiple Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe awards for such iconic songs as “Up Where We Belong,” “Tears in Heaven” “My Heart Will Go On” and “Higher Love.”
Will Jennings was a native Texan who began his professional career as an English professor in Nacogdoches and then at The University of Wisconsin. He moved to Nashville to pursue songwriting in 1971. He was signed by Almo-Irving Music in 1974. The publisher’s Music Row office was his base of operations in Nashville throughout his career.
Jennings’ first songwriting success was 1974’s “Keep On Lovin’ Me,” which rose to No. 23 on the country charts thanks to Johnny Paycheck’s recording of it. The songwriter’s first big hit was 1975’s “Feelin’s,” sung by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Johnny Cash and June Carter had a hit with “Old Time Feeling” in 1976. His lyrics were subsequently recorded by Emmylou Harris, The Bellamy Brothers, Amy Grant, Brady Seals, BeBe & CeCe Winans, Diamond Rio, Freddy Fender, Glen Campbell, Peter Frampton, Tompall Glaser, B.J. Thomas, The Oak Ridge Boys, Janie Fricke, Dobie Gray, Willie Nelson, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Tracy Nelson, Barbara Mandrell and Clint Black, among other Nashville acts.
One of his songwriting collaborators persuaded Jennings to move to L.A. The lyricist first tasted pop-music success when Helen Reddy took his co-written “Somewhere in the Night” into the top 20 in 1977. Shortly afterward, Jennings had a No. 1 pop smash with Barry Manilow’s version of “Looks Like We Made It.” The following year, Manilow revived “Somewhere in the Night” and made it a top 10 hit. In 1979, The Crusaders scored with his “Street Life,” featuring a vocal by Randy Crawford.
Also in 1979, Dionne Warwick revived her career with the million selling and Grammy winning “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” Jennings also co-wrote her 1980 hit “No Night So Long.” This began the decade in which he achieved his greatest successes.The Crusaders returned to his catalog for 1981’s “I’m So Glad I’m Standing Here Today,” featuring a vocal by Joe Cocker. That is the same year that Jennings formed a songwriting partnership with Steve Winwood. Their cowritten pop hits included “While You See a Chance” (1981), “Still in the Game” (1982), the Grammy winning “Higher Love” (1986), “The Finer Things” (1987), “Back in the High Life Again” (1987), “Valerie” (1987), “Roll With It” (1988), “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do” (1988) and “Holding On” (1989).
Will Jennings moved into movie soundtrack work. The 1982 Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes smash “Up Where We Belong” was the theme song for An Officer and a Gentleman. Co-written by Jennings with Buffy Sainte-Marie and Jack Nitzche, it won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for best motion-picture song of the year. The songwriter also contributed to the soundtracks of The Competition (1980), The Commitment (1976), The Land Before Time (1988) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991).
In the early 1980s, Jennings began cowriting songs with Jimmy Buffett for use on the albums Coconut Telegraph (1981), Riddles in the Sand (1984) and Last Mango in Paris (1985). Five of their songs went onto the country hit parade in 1984-85 —“When the Wild Life Betrays Me,” “Who’s the Blonde Stranger,” “Gypsies in the Palace,” “Please Bypass This Heart” and the top 20 hit “If the Phone Doesn’t Ring It’s Me.”
Much of Buffett’s music was recorded in Nashville, and Jennings continued his songwriting trips to Music City. He began collaborating with Rodney Crowell in 1989. Crowell scaled the country charts with their cowritten 1989 top 10 hit “Many a Long and Lonesome Highway.” The team went on to make the country charts with Rodney’s singles of “What Kind of Love” (1989) and “Please Remember Me” (1995).
Returning to soundtrack work, Jennings and Eric Clapton co-wrote “Tears in Heaven,” and it was used in the film Rush. Clapton’s 1992 performance of the song sold a million and earned its creators a Grammy Song of the Year honor, as well as a Golden Globe award.
In 1998, Will Jennings achieved new prominence due to his lyrics for “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song of the movie blockbuster Titanic. As a single, it hit No. 1 for Celine Dion and earned multiple Grammy Awards, It also earned Jennings his second Oscar for Song of the Year from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Meanwhile back in Nashville, Tim McGraw brought back “Please Remember Me” in 1999. This time, the Cowell/Jennings song became a No. 1 country smash that endured on the charts for half the year and remained at the top of the country hit parade for five weeks. McGraw’s wife, Faith Hill, recorded the Jennings co-written “Where Are You Christmas” for the soundtrack of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Her 2000 single of the song has become a holiday perennial, as has Mariah Carey’s version.
His ultra-romantic lyrics were particularly favored by female stylists. Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Anne Murray, Joan Osborne, Patti LaBelle, Juice Newton, Dorothy Moore, Bonnie Raitt, Etta James, Millie Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Rita Coolidge, Kim Carnes, Shirley Bassey, Linda Ronstadt, Nicole Kidman and Vanessa Williams all recorded his works. His songs were also on albums by The Lettermen, B.B. King, Color Me Badd, Steve Ray Vaughan, Aaron Neville, Bill Withers, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Sam & Dave, Ry Cooder, Tom Jones, Warren Zevon, Roy Orbison, Peter Wolf, Paul Anka and Christopher Cross.
Will Jennings was inducted into the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006 in New York City. The lyricist was always widely liked on Music Row. He was voted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013.
He is survived by his wife of 59 years, the former Carole Thurman and by two sisters, Joyce and Gloria.
