Jimmy Kennedy View Sheet Music for this Artist
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For other persons named Jimmy Kennedy, see Jimmy Kennedy (disambiguation).
Jimmy Kennedy (born 20 July 1902 — died 6 April 1984) was a songwriter, predominantly a lyricist putting words to existing music like "Teddy Bears' Picnic" and "My Prayer", or co-writing with composers such as Michael Carr, Wilhelm Grosz (aka Hugh Williams) and Nat Simon among others.
Jimmy Kennedy was born in Omagh, Ireland but grew up in Portstewart. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin.
He taught for a while in England before embarking on a career in song writing by joining the staff of Bert Feldman, a music publisher based in London's Tin Pan Alley. In a career spanning more than fifty years he wrote some 2000 songs, of which over 200 became world-wide hits and about 50 are all-time popular music classics.
Until John Lennon and Paul McCartney, he had more hits in the United States than any other Irish or British songwriter. His first success came in 1931 with the "Barmaids Song" sung by Gracie Fields. "Red Sails in the Sunset" was inspired by a beautiful summer evening in Portstewart in 1935, and "South of the Border" by a holiday picture postcard he received from Tijuana, Mexico. While serving in the British Army's Royal Artillery, where he rose to the rank of Captain, he wrote the wartime hit, "We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" for the British Expeditionary Force. His hits also include "The Isle of Capri", "My Prayer", "Teddy Bears' Picnic" (music by John Walter Bratton), "Love is Like a Violin", "Hokey Cokey" and "Roll Along Covered Wagon".
Jimmy Kennedy Sheet Music
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