Career
Kerr began his education at Bedford School. After gaining an interest for music at school he went into song writing. In the UK, he collaborated with musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s such as Peter Green, Don Partridge and Scott English. The latter pairing resulted in the song "Brandy", which English released in 1971. This song would later become a worldwide hit under the title "Mandy" for Barry Manilow in 1974, although Don Partridge's "Blue Eyes" was Kerr's first hit as a songwriter.
In 1976, Kerr's solo album, Richard Kerr (re-titled Somewhere In the Night in some territories) was released by Epic Records. In November 1978, Kerr's solo album, Welcome to the Club, was released by A&M Records. Produced by Chris Bond, it was MOR pop, with Kerr contributing both acoustic, grand and electric piano, and co-writing the album's ten tunes with frequent collaborator Will Jennings, Gary Osborne, and John Bettis. Other albums by Kerr include From Now Until Then, No Looking Back, Songwriter and Reflections of Richard Kerr.
His most important collaboration has been with the American lyricist, Will Jennings. They have written such popular songs as "Somewhere in the Night", which was a hit for Helen Reddy and later for Barry Manilow (1978); "I'll Never Love This Way Again" for Dionne Warwick and "In the Real World" for Roy Orbison.
His co-penned song (with Osborne) "The Last Place God Made", appeared on World Falling Down, a 1992 album from Peter Cetera.
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