# ‘Get on with it’ – How headteacher inspired Sheffield-born Grammy winning songwriter and producer Eliot Kennedy

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/get-on-with-it-how-headteacher-inspired-sheffield-born-grammy-winning-songwriter-and-producer-eliot-kennedy/
- Published: 2026-07-26T04:00:29+00:00
- Updated: 2026-07-28T00:44:48+00:00
- Original publisher: The Star (Sheffield)
- Original article: https://www.thestar.co.uk/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/eliot-kennedy-grammy-sheffield-music-8820954
- Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, Music, Sheffield

## Key points

- A headteacher’s advice pushed Eliot Kennedy towards music.
- He began professionally as a studio tea boy.
- Kennedy later became a Grammy-winning songwriter and producer.

## Summary

Sheffield-born songwriter and producer Eliot Kennedy has credited a former headteacher with giving him the encouragement that set him on his music career. The Grammy winner said the advice to stop waiting and pursue his ambition prompted him to take a job as a studio tea boy, beginning a path that later brought international success.

Kennedy attended Dinnington High School after spending part of his childhood in Australia, and began writing songs with his brother as a teenager. He went on to work with artists including Take That, the Spice Girls, Boyzone, Céline Dion and Bryan Adams; his co-written song ‘Never Gonna Break My Faith’, recorded by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige for the film *Bobby*, received a Grammy. He has also won an Ivor Novello Award and remains based in Sheffield.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.