Will Jennings, the Oscar-winning US lyricist behind hit songs such as My Heart Will Go On, Tears in Heaven and Up Where We Belong, has died aged 80. His agent said Jennings died at home in Tyler, Texas, and did not give a cause of death.
Born Wilbur Jennings in 1944, he was raised in Tyler and initially went into academia, teaching at the University of Wisconsin. But in 1971 he headed to Nashville and became a lyricist in the city’s country music scene, earning his first country No 1 in 1975 with Feelins’ by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn.
He then relocated to Los Angeles and forged into pop music, reaching US No 1 in 1977 with Barry Manilow’s symphonic ballad Looks Like We Made It, and No 5 in 1979 with I’ll Never Love This Way Again for Dionne Warwick. In the late 1970s he also collaborated on two albums with BB King, and wrote the iconic disco hit Street Life, sung by Randy Crawford with the group the Crusaders.
A sustained collaboration with Steve Winwood produced the psychedelic soft rock opus Arc of a Diver in 1980, followed by the hit single Valerie and Winwood’s most successful album Back in the High Life, including hits such as the Grammy-nominated Higher Love. That song was later covered by Whitney Houston, for whom Jennings wrote a major hit: Didn’t We Almost Have It All, a US chart-topper in 1987.
Eric Clapton admired Jennings’ work with Winwood and asked him to collaborate on Tears in Heaven. Written for the film Rush, the song was also a poignant tribute to Clapton’s son Conor who had fallen to his death aged four from an open window in a New York apartment.
“Eric had the first verse of the song written … I told him that it was so personal he should write everything himself,” Jennings said. “Finally there was nothing else but to do as he requested, despite the sensitivity of the subject. This is a song so personal and so sad ... it is unique in my experience of writing songs.” Tears in Heaven became Clapton’s biggest hit in the US, reaching No 2 in the charts, and won Jennings a Golden Globe.
Jennings had already got set up in Hollywood, earning an Academy Award nomination for the Crawford-sung People Alone, the theme from 1980 drama The Competition. In 1982 he wrote Up Where We Belong, performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for An Officer and a Gentleman – the song topped the US charts, earned Oscar and Bafta awards, and became a defining ballad of that decade.
But it was Titanic in 1997 that generated his most successful and well-known song of all: My Heart Will Go On, performed by Céline Dion with music composed by James Horner. It topped the charts in over 25 countries, and won four Grammys, a Golden Globe and one of Titanic’s 11 Oscars.
Its tale of eternal love was inspired by a real-life meeting, Jennings later explained: “I had met this very vibrant woman who was about 101 years old when I met her … And she came into my mind. And I realised she could have been on the Titanic. So I wrote everything from the point of view of a person of a great age looking back so many years.”
Jennings also continued his association with country music, writing songs such as Please Remember Me, one of Tim McGraw’s biggest hits.
Another ballad he wrote for Crawford, One Day I’ll Fly Away, was a big hit on its 1980 release in the UK, reaching No 2, and was later performed by Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!, with Up Where We Belong also making an appearance. Jennings also collaborated with Mariah Carey to record Where Are You Christmas? for 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, performed by Faith Hill on the soundtrack.
Among those paying tribute was acclaimed songwriter Diane Warren, who wrote: “The love for your brilliant songs will go on forever.”
