Will Jennings, an English professor turned lyricist whose 1998 Academy Award for “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from the movie “Titanic,” capped a long career writing hits for musicians like Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton and Dionne Warwick, died on Sept. 6 at his home in Tyler, Texas. He was 80.
The office of his agent, Sam Schwartz, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.
Mr. Jennings won the Oscar for best song twice: for “My Heart Will Go On,” which he wrote with James Horner and which was performed by Celine Dion; and in 1983 for “Up Where We Belong,” from the film “An Officer and a Gentleman”; written with Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie, it was performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.
In most of his hits, Mr. Jennings wrote the lyrics while his collaborators wrote the melodies — an unsurprising division of labor, given that Mr. Jennings came to songwriting after a career teaching poetry and English literature.
He was known for his disciplined work ethic, his subtle references to classical literature tucked into seemingly airy pop tunes and his insistence on getting to know an artist or film to inhabit their perspectives.
“With Will, his personality broke down all the barriers and got to what’s real,” said Mr. Crowell, who wrote several songs with Mr. Jennings, including “Many a Long and Lonesome Highway” (1989) and “What Kind Of Love” (1992).
Mr. Jennings started writing songs in the early 1970s in Nashville, where his several hits included “Feelins’,” recorded by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn; it topped the country charts in 1975.
By then he had moved to Los Angeles, where he started writing for film soundtracks even as he continued to collaborate on hits for Barry Manilow (“Looks Like We Made It,” 1976, with Richard Kerr), Ms. Warwick (“I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” 1978, a Grammy winner also written with Mr. Kerr) and Randy Crawford (“One Day I’ll Fly Away,” 1980).
Mr. Jennings’s two Oscar-winning songs also won Golden Globe Awards, and he won a Grammy for song of the year for “My Heart Will Go On.”
His most productive writing relationship was with the English blues-rock musician Steve Winwood, who, after an early career with the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic, was trying to make it as a solo artist.
Mr. Jennings contributed several songs to Mr. Winwood’s second solo album, “Arc of a Diver” (1980), including Mr. Winwood’s first big hit, “While You See a Chance” He went on to write the lyrics for the Winwood album “Talking Back to the Night” (1982) and for most of the tracks on two more Winwood albums, “Back in the High Life” (1986) and “Roll With It” (1988). Loaded with radio-friendly songs, the releases established Mr. Winwood as one of the most successful singers of the 1980s.
Another of Mr. Winwood’s early bands was Blind Faith, a supergroup that included Mr. Clapton. When Mr. Clapton asked for help on the soundtrack for the 1991 film “Rush,” Mr. Winwood suggested Mr. Jennings.
Mr. Clapton was already in the studio recording, but he was stuck on some of the soundtrack’s songs, including “Tears in Heaven,” about his 4-year-old son, Conor, who had recently fallen to his death.
Mr. Clapton had the first verse; Mr. Jennings arrived and quickly wrote the rest, including what he later said were his favorite lines, of all that he had ever written:
Time can bring you down
Time can bend your knees
Time can break your heart
Have you begging please
The song brought Mr. Jennings more acclaim, including another Grammy for song of the year and the second of his three Golden Globes.
Wilbur Hershel Jennings was born on June 27, 1944, in Kilgore, Texas, and raised in nearby Tyler, amid the East Texas oil fields, where his father, Hershel, was a laborer; his mother was Millie (Hughes) Jennings.
Will attended Tyler Junior College, then transferred to the University of Texas at Austin and then again to Stephen F. Austin State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1966 and a master’s in 1967, both in English. He taught English literature at Stephen F. Austin for a year before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
He taught there for three years — and played in a country-rock band — before getting the itch to write country songs. He and his wife, Carole (Thurman) Jennings, packed their bags for Nashville.
Ms. Jennings, whom he married in 1965, survives him, as do his sisters, Joyce Hudnall and Gloria Townsend.
Mr. Jennings wrote less after his success with “My Heart Will Go On” and eventually returned to Tyler. Though he was widely considered one of the best lyricists alive, he had no interest in milking that distinction.
“I have a funny reputation because I’ve never pursued the publicist’s path to eternal fame,” he told The Vancouver Sun in 1993. “This is a hustling business and the squeaky wheels get the grease, but I’m just trying to write the best song I can each day with whatever frail equipment I have.”
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