Northern Ireland–born Jimmy Kennedy was one of Britain’s most successful lyricists, contributing the words to such hits as The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (1932, to music composed in 1907 by John W. Bratton); Isle Of Capri (with Will Grosz, 1933); Red Sails In The Sunset (with Will Grosz as “Hugh Williams”, 1935); Did Your Mother Come From Ireland? (with Maurice Cohen as “Michael Carr”, 1936); Harbour Lights (with Will Grosz as “Hugh Williams”, 1937); My Prayer (English lyrics to a French popular song by Georges Boulanger, 1939); South Of The Border (Down Mexico Way) (with Maurice Cohen as “Michael Carr”, 1939); (We’re Gonna Hang Out) The Washing On The Siegfried Line (with Maurice Cohen as “Michael Carr”, 1939); April In Portugal (English lyrics to a Portuguese popular song by Paul Ferrao, 1953); and Istanbul, Not Constantinople (with Nat Simon, 1953).1
Kennedy collaborated with Fred Godfrey on just one song, Old Sailor (1936, with credits occasionally also attributed to Stan Bowsher), which Arthur Tracy, “The Streetsinger”, among others, recorded.
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Note
1 For more information on Jimmy Kennedy, see his entry in Peter Gammond, The Oxford Companion to Popular Music (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 312–13.
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