Will Jennings, an Oscar winner for “My Heart Will Go On” and “Up Where We Belong” and one of the best known lyricists in the contemporary songwriting community, has died, his longtime publisher confirms to Variety. No cause of death was announced, although he had been ill for some time; he was 80.
Although the themes he co-wrote for “Titanic” (recorded by Celine Dion) and “An Officer and a Gentleman” (sung by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes) won him his two Academy Awards, Jennings was equally renowned for a third film song, “Tears in Heaven” (performed by Eric Clapton), from the movie “Rush,” which won him a Golden Globe for best original song as well as Grammys for record of the year and song of the year. He also won three Grammy Awards.
Jennings also had major hits with songs recorded by Whitney Houston, Steve Winwood, Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow and Tim McGraw, among others.
Jennings’ association with Steve Winwood was a particularly fruitful one, producing two No. 1 hits, “Higher Love” and “Roll WIth It,” as well as “Back in the High Life Again” and “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do.”
Houston took “DIdn’t We Almost Have It All” to No. 1, and Manilow did the same with “Looks Like We Made It,” to name two of Jennings’ most indelible pop classics.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, and was subsequently made a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as well.
Singer Peter Wolf paid tribute to his friend on social media. “A sad time, the passing of Will Jennings, a maestro, brilliant mind and a gentle spirit,” the former J. Geils Band frontman wrote. “Will shared his talents with me, ever patient and generous; he was a treasured friend and teacher, enriching my life in so many ways. It was an enormous honor to have worked with such a musical genius for so many years… To quote one of his favorite poets, W.B Yeats, ‘Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.’”
In 2023, Jennings’ song catalog was jointly acquired by All Clear Music and the Fuji Music Group. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, Billboard estimated the value of the catalog at $60-70 million.
Other artists who recorded Jennings’ work or co-wrote with him include Roy Orbison, Mariah Carey, B.B. King, Rodney Crowell, Diana Ross, Faith Hill, Jimmy Buffett and Joe Sample, the last of whom co-wrote the classic “Street Life,” as recorded by Randy Crawford and the Crusaders.
Of his work on “Titanic,” Jennings told Songfacts, “I had met this very vibrant woman who was about 101 years old when I met her. That was two years before. And she came into my mind. And I realized 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. And it was the love story that made the film, of course. It was magnificently done with special effects, the actors were good. But the love story was what it was.”
Source Agencies
