Songoftheday 7/12/12 - No way i'm livin' without you, I don't want to be free..

Jennifer Holliday - "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going"

from the album Dreamgirls (Original Cast Recording) (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (three weeks)

Weeks in the top-40: 7

Today's song of the day is the last Broadway cast single so far to make the US top-40. "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" is the showstopper from Dreamgirls, the show about the music business in the 1960s that everybody took as a loose reading of the Diana Ross and The Supremes story. After starring in Your Arms are Too Short To Box With God at the age of 19, Jennifer Holliday was cast in the role of Effie White, the big belter who was edged out of the group, and the song closed act one like a tornado....

The show won Holliday a Tony for best actress, beating out co-star Sheryl Lee Ralph, and making up for Dreamgirls losing out the Best Musical award to Nine. The single was not only a top-40 pop hit, but a #1 R&B single for four weeks, as well as making the British top-40 as well. The album also was a top-20 hit, one of the biggest cast albums of the 80s. Holliday also went on to win the Grammy for Best Female R&B performance for the song, as well as best cast album.

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This would be the last time out so far for Jennifer, but she has forged a steady career from this jumping point. The following year she scored a #2 R&B hit with "I Am Love", and in 1985 topped the dance club chart with "No Frills Love", the first of three times she would (including another mix of that same song). She even had two separate top-10 chart runs in 2001 and 2007 with dance remixes of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" with DJs Rosabel (house pioneer Ralphi Rosario and Miami's Abel Aguilera)...

In 2006, Dreamgirls was made into a movie, with Beyonce in the lead and American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson as Effie. Hudson killed in the role, earning her an Oscar, and a minor pop hit...

And since, every singing competition show has co-opted the song as a barnburner exercise...

with American Idol's Jessica Sanchez..

Bianca Ryan from America's Got Talent....

Filipino upcomer Charice..

and Amber Riley from Glee charted in 2009 at #94 with her version..

and oh, yes, I'm going there - David Archuleta from the Jenny Jones Show...

and finally, Whitney Houston tore it with her version (mixed with "I Have Nothing")..

Up tomorrow: A record mogul takes a drive...