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On the Charts 52 Years Ago Today, Dolly Parton Was at No. 1 With the Timeless Hit That Made Her “Enough To Buy Graceland”
Without context, Dolly Parton’s 1974 single “I Will Always Love You” sounds like a poignant breakup anthem. And it was—but the breakup in question was not a romantic one. The country icon penned “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to her mentor and longtime business partner, Porter Wagoner.
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With the release of her album Jolene that same year, the “Queen of Country Music” declared her independence from Wagoner and surged forward with her solo career. And on this day (June 8) in 1974, Parton received reassurance that she’d done the right thing when “I Will Always Love You” topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the first time.
“I had come to Nashville to be my own star,” she told DJ Howard Stern in 2023, adding that she never planned on “being a girl singer” forever.
“I knew my destiny,” she continued. “I knew that I had to continue doing what I felt… drawn to do.”
Allowing the conflicting emotions to pour out of her, Parton sat down and penned “I Will Always Love You”.
The next morning, she played it for Wagoner in his office. With tears streaming down his face, Wagoner told his protege, “That’s the best song you’ve ever wrote. You can go if I can produce the song.”
The Elvis Presley Version That Wasn’t
A year later, Dolly Parton received a call from the biggest star in show business at the time—Elvis Presley himself. He wanted to record his own version of “I Will Always Love You”.
Initially, it seemed like a no-brainer. However, her phone rang again the night before the recording session.
It was Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s notoriously hard-nosed manager, calling to inform her that the King would only record the track if she signed over half the songwriting rights.
However—as she had already displayed when she chose to walk away from Wagoner—Parton’s bubbly blonde exterior belies some seriously shrewd business instincts. She told Parker no.
“Of course I cried all night about that,” Parton said.
Dolly Parton Prefers This Cover, Anyway
Turns out, Dolly Parton’s tears were for naught.
In 1992, pop-R&B diva Whitney Houston recorded her own version of “I Will Always Love You” for the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, her film debut.
Houston’s cover immediately took its place in the cultural pantheon, becoming the best-selling single of all time by a woman in the United States.
Three decades later, many associate the song with Houston instead of Parton, and the “Jolene” singer doesn’t mind. In fact, she prefers Houston’s version, too. What’s more, it validated the agonizing decision to decline Elvis Presley’s offer.
“He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn’t,” she told CMT. “Then when Whitney [Houston’s version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.”
Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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