Will Jennings

Grammy- and Academy Award-winning songwriter Will Jennings has written for a wide variety of recording artists, from English rock stars Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton to blues legend B. B. King and jazz legend Joe Sample, from beach troubadour Jimmy Buffett to American rock icon Roy Orbison. Jennings wrote a series of hits and albums with Steve Winwood, including "Higher Love," which received a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year Grammy for "Higher Love." With Joe Sample, he penned "Street Life"(a worldwide hit for the Crusaders with singer Randy Crawford) and several songs for various albums by the Crusaders. He also wrote three modern classics with Richard Kerr: "Somewhere In The Night" and "Looks Like We Made It" for Barry Manilow and "I'll Never Love This Way Again" for Dionne Warwick. Jennings has collaborated on many songs for films, the most notable being "Up Where We Belong," with Jack Nitzche and Buffy St.-Marie for An Officer and a Gentleman, which won the Academy Award in America and the BAFTA (British Academy Award) in England for the songwriters and was a number one hit for Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, and, in 1997, the worldwide number one Céline Dion hit, “My Heart Will Go On,” for Titanic, for which he and his collaborator James Horner won the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Song from a Motion Picture. Among his other collaborations are two albums written with Jimmy Buffett and Michael Utley, and the Roy Orbison King Of Hearts album, containing several songs written with Orbison. In Nashville, he wrote hits with Rodney Crowell, including "Many a Long and Lonesome Highway and" "What Kind of Love," which is a tune Jennings had started with Orbison and finished with Crowell. Jennings also wrote "Tears In Heaven" with Eric Clapton, which won a Grammy in 1993 for Song of the Year and also won the Ivor Novello award (the British Grammy) for best song from a film.