Born in 1902 in Omagh, Tyrone, Northern Ireland Jimmy Kennedy was undoubtedly one of the greatest songwriters of the last century and immortilised in the “Songwriter’s Hall of Fame”.

It is possibly not well known that Kennedy wrote for many of the great performers of the 20th Century including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong plus many more with such hits as Barmaids Song, Red Sails in the Sunset, South of the Border, We’re Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line, The Isle of Capri, Istanbul (Not Constantinople) My Prayer, Teddy Bears Picnic, Love is Like a Violin, Hokey Pokey, Roll Along Covered Wagon. Kennedy’s first notable success came in 1932 when he wrote the words to The Teddy Bear Two-Step, and soon renamed it The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, a song that sold four million records and marked the beginning of one the world’s most prolific and successful songwriting careers.

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