Songoftheday 8/21/18 - Bittersweet memories that is all I'm taking with me, so good-bye please don't cry we both know I'm not what you need...
from the album The Bodyguard (Original Soundtrack) (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (fourteen weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 24
Today's song of the day is from Whitney Houston, whose third album, I'm Your Baby Tonight, spun off four big pop hits with "My Name Is Not Susan", "Miracle", and two #1's with "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and "All The Man That I Need", yet still was regarded by many to be a "letdown" from the massive achievements in sales and awards for her first two records. In the summer of 1992, Whitney married pop star Bobby Brown, and was filming what would be her debut cinematic role in The Bodyguard. Starring as the singer Rachel Marron with Kevin Costner as her titular protector, the film was not only a huge success commercially (despite horrid and possibly racist reviews), but groundbreaking in its treatment of an interracial budding romance, something that even in the early 1990s was mostly unheard of in a "mainstream" release. The soundtrack to the film was just as massive if not even more so than the film, with sales of over 13 million copies in just the United States. Three weeks before the opening of the movie, the first single was released - a cover of a ballad written and originally performed by the great country icon Dolly Parton. "I Will Always Love You" was first heard on Dolly's 1974 album Jolene, where it was released as the second single (after the just-as-essential title track), and topped Billboard's Country Singles chart for a week. According to Dolly, it was inspired by the dissolution of her professional (subsequent to her personal) relationship with Porter Wagoner (who is here at the end of this clip very very awkwardly)...
In 1982, Dolly appeared in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, and for the emotional climax of the movie, re-recorded "I Will Always Love You". That version returned Dolly to #1 on the country chart, climbed to #17 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart, and peaked at #53 on their pop Hot 100. Parton would be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical (which Julie Andrews won for Victor/Victoria to show how competitive that race was)...
It would seem as if nobody could even touch the emotional power of Dolly's performance in this movie, but it would take another film (and a rework of the arrangement) to come to match it. Originally a second choice for The Bodyguard (after "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" was used for Fried Green Tomatoes by Paul Young for a top-40 hit), it was championed by Costner, who had been a fan of a cover from Linda Ronstadt from the 70s. With David Foster producing, and the now-iconic a cappella beginning, which scared off Foster and label execs at first, Houston's soulful rework of "I Will Always Love You" became a totally separate organism in itself, and quickly the biggest single of all time up to that point. Dolly even was sold, making sure they had the final verse from the original that gives the song such a powerful bittersweet punch...
Man, the feeling of seeing and hearing this for the first time back in 1992 when it first arrived is invaluable. Remembering still brings tears to my eyes.
Whitney's version of "I Will Always Love You" became her longest-running #1 hit, spending fourteen weeks at the top of the American singles chart in November 1992 through February of 1993. At the time that broke the record for most weeks at #1 by one week over Boyz II Men's "End Of The Road" from just months earlier. The song also spent eleven weeks on top of Billboard's R&B chart, and five atop their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format list. Internationally, the single went to #1 almost everywhere, such as the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Iceland. The following year, Whitney won two Grammy Awards for Female Pop Vocal and Record of the Year (the soundtrack won Album of the Year as well).
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Here's the version of the song that originally grabbed Kevin Costner's ear - from Linda Ronstadt's 1975 album Prisoner In Disguise...
Here's Whitney performing the song live at the Grammys in 1993...
At the World Music Awards the following year, she gave what many regard as her best live performance...
After the success of Whitney's recording, Dolly Parton yet again re-recorded "I Will Always Love You" with country virtuoso Vince Gill for a compilation album, and the resulting single climbed to #15 on the Country Singles chart in 1995...
Here's Whitney appearing in Washington, DC in 1997...
In 2002, English singer Rik Waller, who originally was a finalist on Pop Idol, released a cover of the song as a single, which climbed to #10 on the British singles chart...
After Houston's tragic passing in 2012, Jennifer Hudson performed the song in tribute...
Lastly, here's Whitney at the Arista 25th Anniversary Concert in 2000...
Up tomorrow: The boyz Whitney knocked from the record books return with a doo-wop classic.
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