Eliot Kennedy is a multi-award winning songwriter and record producer who has turned his hand in recent years to also writing musical theatre shows and music for film and TV along with music for mental health therapy.
Eliot’s first global songwriting success, the Spice Girls smash bit single "Say You’ll Be There," was followed by a string of major hits written and produced for the likes of Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Boyzone, Blue, S Club 7, Five, Billie Piper and Atomic Kitten to mention a few. In 1997, Eliot won an Ivor Novello for Boyzone’s "Picture Of You," and in 2006 his song "Never Gonna Break My Faith" was awarded a Grammy award performed by Aretha Franklin and Mary J Blige for multi-award winning feature film Bobby. The song has now been adopted by the Black Lives Matter movement. Something that Eliot feels is one of his biggest achievements. Alongside Bryan Adams, Eliot also won Canada’s Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year for "When You’re Gone" and was nominated for a Critics Choice Award for "Never Let Go" which featured in the 2006 film The Guardian as well as collaborating with Hans Zimmer on the Dreamworks movie - Spirit.
For many years, Eliot has enjoyed a fruitful songwriting partnership with Gary Barlow. In 1993, Eliot co-wrote and co-produced songs on Take That’s second album and Eliot’s first UK Number 1 record "Everything Changes". In 2008, Eliot and Gary wrote songs for Britannia High, a TV series for which Eliot also scored all of the episodes, and in 2012 they coproduced "Sing," the official song for the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen. In 2017 together they wrote the songs for the musicals Finding Neverland (which won Broadway.com awards for Best Musical and Best Song) Calendar Girls and Around The World in 80 Days.
Eliot has recently had more chart success with Dame Shirley Bassey, writing her latest single "Look But Don’t Touch" and Bryan Adams and is currently working on a new broadway bound musical titled "Empire State Dreams".
He is also currently developing a musical set in his home city, Sheffield titled Women Of Steel.
After 25 years of writing and producing hits for international artists, Eliot finally recorded his own album "A Yacht Named Sue" with singles "My Destiny", "When Love Breaks Down" and "A Love If Your Own" gaining fan and radio support.
Eliot also has a passion for his hold city Sheffield where he has devoted many years to charities supporting homelessness, mental health, and Cancer research.
During the Covid 19 lockdown, Eliot composed and produced an album "Mind Music" to help with anxiety and general mental health. This was followed by a radio show focussed on assisting people to relax and find peaceful sleep.
Using music for therapy is not new, but Eliot’s perspective of helping to curate music specifically for individual treatment and pairing it with lived experience content to help the reader / listener immerse themselves in the treatment is a concept dear to his heart.
Music is the soundtrack to our lives, and Eliot wants to make it the soundtrack to mental health treatment and mental wellbeing.
