10 January 2017
"I Will Always Love You"
One of my favorite pieces of music, sung by the incomparable Dolly Parton. She wrote this way back in 1973 when she was breaking up with her long-time partner Porter Waggoner. She recut it again in 1982 for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (here is the YouTube video of the movie version.)
The song became even more famous in the 1990s when Whitney Houston covered it for her film debut in The Bodyguard. Her version was ranked #1 in VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Love Songs.
I have embedded two versions: the upper one features Dolly in a solo concert performance; the video is grainy, especially at fullscreen, but the power of her voice comes through well. The lower one is her duet with Vince Gill, which was rated by Country Music Television as #1 in their 100 Greatest Country Love Songs.
Both are worth listening to.
Originally posted in 2008. Reposted to update one of the videos that had died.
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It is a great song. There was some controversy when the Whitney Houston version song was not nominated for best song when used in the Bodyguard.
ReplyDeleteThe requirement is that it be an original song - and as you correctly report, this had been around and had previously appeared in Best Little...
I always forget just how much this song moves me until I run into it unexpectedly like this...thanks!
ReplyDeleteBrought tears to my eyes. Dolly is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post!
Linda Ronstadt also does a spectacular version of this song - Whitney's version puts me a bit on edge (I keep saying to myself "why doesn't she just hit the damn note?!).
ReplyDeleteA song can't be nominated for an Oscar unless it was written for the movie. That's why "Love Me Tender" wasn't eligible, either.
"A song can't be nominated for an Oscar unless it was written for the movie." Interesting; I didn't know that. You learn something every day. Thanks.
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