{"id":24856,"date":"2024-03-15T15:11:13","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T15:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=24856"},"modified":"2024-03-15T15:11:13","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T15:11:13","slug":"recording-anniversary-of-i-will-always-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/recording-anniversary-of-i-will-always-love-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular music academic celebrates major anniversary of Dolly Parton song"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 50 years since the first recording was made of Dolly Parton\u2019s major hit I will always love you <\/em>\u2013 the hit later taken to chart-topping fame through Whitney Houston\u2019s rendition in the film The Bodyguard.<\/p>\n

And Dr Marie Thompson<\/a>, who wrote an Open University six-week short course<\/a> based on the work of the country music icon and singer-songwriter, says those who think it\u2019s about a romantic breakup are mistaken.<\/p>\n

The story goes the singer wrote it for country singer Porter Wagoner, who had his own television show and recruited her as his \u201cgirl singer\u201d, eventually signing her to his own label.<\/p>\n

They had great success but I will always love you <\/em>was written by her to signal the break-up of their professional relationship. This was her farewell song to him.<\/p>\n

Marie said: \u201cThe song was produced by Bob Ferguson and it was recorded at RCA\u2019s Studio B, which is a studio that was associated with the type of country music production called the Nashville Sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Nashville Sound involved replacing some of the rougher elements of country music such as nasal styles of singing and instruments, like fiddle, with smoother elements from 50s pop, so it has a more refined sound and we can hear some of these elements in I will always love you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues: \u201cAlthough the song has quite a tender sentiment I think that is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of her relationship with Wagoner.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the 1970s he actually filed a lawsuit for $3m around breach of contract and I think she ended up settling for $1m but, that said, they remained friends in later life so the tempestuousness of their relationship didn\u2019t stop their friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many, it\u2019s the Whitney Houston version from the film The Bodyguard that they know the song from. Marie says it could have been What becomes of the broken hearted<\/em> by Jimmy Ruffin, which the film\u2019s music producer David Foster had in his sights.<\/p>\n

But another film, Fried Green Tomatoes, had just been released, which made use of that song so it was ditched.<\/p>\n

It was Kevin Costner, who starred in the film alongside Whitney, who suggested I will always love you<\/em> and the rest is musical history.<\/p>\n

Visit the BBC\u2019s Soul Music podcast<\/a> to hear an interview with Dr Marie Thompson who contributed to a programme about the Parton favourite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 50 years since the first recording was made of Dolly Parton\u2019s major hit I will always love you \u2013 the hit later taken to chart-topping fame through Whitney Houston\u2019s rendition in the film The Bodyguard. And Dr Marie Thompson, who wrote an Open University six-week short course based on the work of the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":24055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[651,860,869,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-24856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-literature-music","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-dolly-parton","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}