Hitmaker Eliot Kennedy’s Aretha Franklin classic hailed ‘anthem’ for our times

Never Gonna Break My Faith was written by the duo for the 2006 film Bobby, as a duet between Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige winning Aretha Franklin her final Grammy.

But a never heard before solo version featuring Aretha Franklin and the Boys Choir of Harlem has just been released by Sony’s RCA Records, RCA Inspiration and Legacy Recordings.

LISTEN: Hear the re-released version of Never Gonna Break My Faith – CLICK HERE.

Its release coincides with Juneteenth 2020, also known as Freedom Day, a national holiday in the USA – this year celebrating the milestone 155th anniversary when all enslaved black people were freed.

The song resonates today, with lyrics including “My Lord, won’t you help them to understand/That when someone takes the life of an innocent man/Well they’ve never really won, and all they’ve really done/Is set the soul free, where it’s supposed to be.”

The story behind the song’s re-release has featured in Rolling Stone magazine, as the song looks set to become a global viral hit.

Bryan Adams sent the version that he said had been “sitting on his computer for years” to Sony Music’s Creative Officer and long-time friend of Franklin’s, Clive Davis who described her voice on Never Gonna Break My Faith as “chilling” saying the song’s lyrics and relevance “will shake every fibre in your body.”

He added: “Everyone should hear this record. It deserves to be an anthem.”

Artists across the world have released songs in response to the global protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, covering protest anthems and older songs that resonate with the times.

Eliot, who has written and produced for many other global music stars, from Celine Dion to The Spice Girls and Take That, said of his work with Aretha Franklin:

“It has been the honour of my life to have written a song for the best voice that ever lived, and now to have it released as a theme of our times and the song to hopefully give faith to those during these challenging times, is truly beyond honour.

“It is my best work, and I am so happy people get to hear it as it should have been with Aretha Franklin singing the song on her own.”

Eliot added: “This song that I co-wrote with Bryan Adams was originally for a powerful movie about the death of Bobby Kennedy.

“It was written with an artist like Aretha in mind, though neither Bryan or I ever dreamed she would sing it. But she was quoted as saying she had to sing it, as it was the best lyric that she had read in over 20 years. That is going to go on my headstone!”

Eliot met Bryan Adams over 20 years ago.

He recalled: “The funny thing is I’d gone to see Bryan at a gig the night before in Sheffield Arena, just because I was a fan. The next morning, I was in the supermarket doing my food shopping and my mobile phone went, and he said ‘it’s Bryan Adams here’. I didn’t believe him.

“He said, ‘no it’s Bryan Adams, I really love your Spice Girls record and do you want to get together and have a cup of tea. To be able to be a bona fide co-writer with one of my idols was a huge deal.”

The first hit the pair co-wrote was Baby When You’re Gone, released in 1998 featuring Adams and Mel C. The pair went on to write the title song to Celine Dion’s massive hit album, Let’s Talk About Love, with 33 million copies sold word-wide, it is one of the best-selling albums in history.

A local hero in his hometown Sheffield, Eliot is famed for performing charity gigs and raising funds for good causes close to his heart.

He said: “Music gives you access to people’s humanity; you can actually do incredible things with that. That’s a really powerful tool.”