His Tunes Will Go On: Eau Claire Played Role in Late Lyricist’s Story
before he wrote some of the best-known songs of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Will Jennings taught in E.C.
You probably didn’t know his name, but you knew his lyrics. In fact, if you’ve listened to the radio or gone to the movies since the 1980s, you’ve probably sung along to them. Will Jennings – who died over the weekend at age 80 – was a legendary, award-winning songwriter, penning the lyrics to such memorable tunes as “My Heart Will Go On” (from Titanic) and “Up Where We Belong” (from An Officer and a Gentleman) to Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love,” and Whitney Houston’s “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.”
In his illustrious career, Jennings worked with an impressive array of household names and won two Academy Awards, three Grammys, two Golden Globes, and a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And it all started – sort of – at UW-Eau Claire. Jennings, a graduate of Steven F. Austin State University in his native Texas, taught poetry and composition for three years at what was then known as Wisconsin State University-Eau Claire. He left Eau Claire in 1971 to pursue his songwriting career in Nashville. But before he departed, he was already dabbling in the profession that would become his life’s work.
“Music is almost endless if you let your heart open, your head open, your ears open,” he said in an interview published earlier this year.
A May 1969 item in The Spectator, the university’s student newspaper, noted that Jennings was presenting a “song-play” called “Blue Mountain” at a campus coffee house. “ ‘Blue Mountain’ is an experimental form,” Jennings told the newspaper, “combining elements of poetry, music, and drama.”
The previous October, the newspaper covered a lecture Jennings delivered at Katherine Thomas Hall about the significance of the music of Bob Dylan and The Beatles. “Folk musicians are reestablishing communication and bringing poetry to the people,” he said, lauding tunes like Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” and The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” – and likely never imagining that some of his future work would arguably become as famous.
Jennings won his first Oscar for “Up Where We Belong” in 1983, and a second for “My Heart Will Go On” in 1998. A subsequent Spectator article noted that during his Eau Claire years, Jennings played guitar in a country-rock band called Blue Mountain Marriage with two men who went on to become longtime UWEC professors: Ron Keezer and John Buchholz. According to The Spectator, “The band played just about everywhere anyone would let it. ... This included weddings, dances, restaurants and bars.”
After a few years in Nashville, Jennings set out in 1974 for Los Angeles, where he ultimately found massive success and worked with the likes of B.B. King, Barry Manilow, Roy Orbison, Jimmy Buffet, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Tim McGraw, and many more. At least seven of his songs hit No. 1 on their respective charts, and they were worth an enormous sum: Billboard magazine reported last year that the rights to his song catalog were worth between $60 million and $70 million.
Through all his success, Jennings maintained a soft spot for Eau Claire. “There’s very nice, sweet people up there,” he said in 1998.
