Will Jennings

Will Jennings was an American lyricist. He was known for writing the songs “”Up Where We Belong,” “Higher Love,” “Tears In Heaven,” and “My Heart Will Go On.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and won several awards, including 3 Grammy Awards, 2 Golden Globe Awards, and 2 Academy Awards. He was a prolific songwriter with a huge catalog of compositions. He wrote for a variety of artists, including Steve Winwood, Whitney Houston, Eric Clapton, BB King, Joe Sample, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett and Barry Manilow.

His first big hit came when Manilow took his joint composition with Richard Kerr, “Looks Like We Made It,” to #1 in 1977. With Steve Winwood, Jennings wrote a series of albums including Arc of a Diver and Back In The High Life, an album that contained the hits “Higher Love,” “The Finer Things,” and “Back In The High Life Again.” Both Jennings and Winwood were nominated for the Song of theYear award for “Higher Love.” With Joe Sample, Jennings wrote “Street Life,” a world-wide hit for The Crusaders with singer Randy Crawford. In addition to “Looks Like We Made It,” with Richard Kerr, Jennings also wrote “Somewhere In The Night,” and “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” for Dionne Warwick.