I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston recording)

recorded "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" for another film, Houston and Costner dropped suggestions of recording it for the movie. In April 1991, Houston announced that she was to co-star with Kevin Costner in a film titled The Bodyguard. The decision to do the film by Houston initially "didn't impress" Clive Davis, the head of Houston's record label Arista, describing the film's first draft of the script as a "pure thriller", later admitting that he was "nervous" of the film's aspects and what it would do for Houston's film career. Due to Houston's worldwide fame as a music superstar, Davis felt the idea of Houston doing the film "without really previously ever testing her acting chops... was speculative. It was risky. You don't come fully confident that she can do everything. And will the script be up to the mettle of somebody who would become the best-selling vocalist of all time?" Houston suggested, politely to Foster, to "try and make one more demo. And make it a little more... interesting?" After British singer Paul Young's rendition of the song from the soundtrack of the film, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), reached the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 that month and became an inescapable radio hit, they agreed to search for another song. According to Crowe, she felt the song chosen had to "answer the question: what would you sing to somebody that you had an affair with, who had just taken a bullet for you and had saved your son's life, but you are going to go in completely separate directions after your brief affair, and you will probably never see him again? So, bittersweet memories. I always say when you're trying to find a song: what does the song have to do in the story? And if you ask enough questions, the song will present itself." ==Recording==

. Crowe later stated that she considered "California oldies", songs from artists such as the Eagles and Neil Young. Davis agreed on the track, seeing its "full potential, lyrically and musically" and looked at it as "raw material. With the lyric, the music, with the potential arrangement, could it fulfill the potential of that scene? And the answer was yes." Costner suggested Houston sing the first verse a cappella. Though Foster told Costner and Houston that he thought the idea of starting the song a cappella was "ridiculous", he reluctantly agreed as he had ideas of adding strings and horns later in the song's studio recording. Costner later explained to Kelly Clarkson his reasoning behind the acapella intro with regard to the plot line of his and Houston's characters in the film: "Whitney was doing almost an apology moment at that point... And what better way to let someone know they really mean what they’re singing to you than when they say, 'I don’t even need to have music behind it. Let me sing to you what I feel about you.'" According to Foster, Cissy leaned to him and told him "you're witnessing greatness right now, I hope you know that." In addition to the performance, a rock-arranged recording of the song, sung by John Doe of the punk rock band X, could be heard playing on the jukebox in a scene where Houston dances with Costner. A studio recording commenced on April 22 at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles. Prior to recording, Foster was contacted by Parton over the recording and the songwriter suggested Houston add the third verse from her 1974 original version. Parton stated because the third verse in her original version was a recitation, country radio programmers at the time chose not to play it, cutting it out to go straight into the final chorus. As a result, when the song was covered by Ronstadt and other singers, the recitation wasn't used. Parton suggested Houston to fully sing the third verse. According to Foster, Houston learned the third verse within several minutes and added her own vocal arrangement to the verse. Again, like in the live Miami performance, Houston brought along her bandmates, namely musical director Rickey Minor, drummer Ricky Lawson, percussionist Bashiri Johnson and saxophonist Kirk Whalum, to record on the studio version in Los Angeles. Houston recorded two takes of the song at Ocean Way. Foster decided to keep the first take because it was "flawless and raw". According to Clive Davis, when Foster first sent him the record, he told Foster that he loved it, to which Foster quickly retorted "don't get demo-itis! Don't fall in love! Because I'm gonna sweeten it, I'm gonna add strings and horns and do my thing!'," adding that after Foster kept submitting subsequent versions of the song that it "sounded slick". Davis stated that the "raw purity of that first mix, with the a cappella [opening bars]... just haunted me. But David kept saying 'just wait, I'm not done yet,'", further adding that Foster's later mixes sounded "a little sweet". When Warner Bros. Pictures demanded a leading single to promote the film to be released immediately at the start of November, Davis made the decision to release the song as it was in the first version, called the "board mix" by Crowe and called the "first rough draft" by Davis himself. When Foster learned of Davis' plans to release the first version, he was initially angry and reportedly cursed at Davis. 24 hours later following the song's release, however, a more calmed down Foster called Davis back, apologizing and agreeing with the impresario, saying to him, "this is magic, thank you." ==Arrangement==

Houston's rendition of "I Will Always Love You" is a plaintive R&B love ballad with pop, soul and gospel elements, arranged by Foster and Houston. The song starts off a cappella and remains that way for around 45 seconds until the chorus, in which by then, strings and keyboard flourishes are added in. The first verse and chorus are sung in a softer range by Houston while the second verse and chorus features restrained belting The song has an alto saxophone solo by Kirk Whalum and drumming from Ricky Lawson, including a one-note solo tom on the drum that leads to a key change and a final chorus, sung with Houston's full range. The song then slows back down with Houston singing softer again and ends with a vocal soprano wail on the word "you", which Houston sustains for eleven seconds with her range going from F—B—D. Sheet music for Houston's version of this song provided by Hal Leonard Music Publishing shows the key of A major and a in common time with a tempo of "freely" at 60 beats per minute. After the acapella intro, the song follows a chord progression of A–Fm–D7–E–A–Fm–C–Bm7–A2. Three minutes and thirty-one seconds later, it shifts to B major and the chord progression shifts to Bm–G–Em7–F–B–Gm–F–B2–D. Houston's vocal range in the song goes from the low note of F3 to the high note of G5 while Foster's piano range in the song goes from the low note of C1 to the high note of D6. ==Critical reception==

Houston's rendition of "I Will Always Love You" received universal acclaim from music critics, being now regarded as one of her "signature songs. Larry Flick of Billboard magazine wrote that the song is "bolstered by a remarkably restrained (and ultimately effective) vocal by Houston. She builds to dramatic, heartfelt conclusion that makes sense, given the unusually slow-building created by producer David Foster." Randy Clark of Cashbox noted that "the unstoppable voice and unquestionable talent of Whitney Houston will no doubt come roaring back onto the charts with this cover". Amy Linden of Entertainment Weekly said it "is artistically satisfying and uncharacteristically hip for the MOR songbird." John Martinucci of Gavin Report asserted that Houston "delivers a powerful rendition that reminds us of her natural abilities as a singer with or without musical accompaniment." Stephen Holden of The New York Times called it a "magnificent rendition", commenting,Houston transforms a plaintive country ballad into a towering pop-gospel assertion of lasting devotion to a departing lover. Her voice breaking and tensing, she treats the song as a series of emotional bursts in a steady climb toward a final full-out declamation. Along the way, her virtuosic gospel embellishments enhance the emotion and never seem merely ornamental. Peter Stanton of Smash Hits commented, "A slow intro moulds into a crescendo of huggy-kissy-smoochiness that could melt the heart of the yeti of Northern Siberia." Writing for USA Today'' on November 17, 1992, James T. Jones IV labeled it a "tour-de-force", and added "[Houston] gives a 3-star [out of four] performance. Where Dolly Parton's original 'I Will Always Love You' was plaintive and tear-stained, Houston's is gospel-infused and dramatic." The key change after the third verse drew much mention. Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times commented that the singer "has the goods to deliver on the tune's haunting beauty and resists overpowering it – until the finale, when the key change and stratospheric notes drain all the heart-rending sadness out of the song and make it sound like just another anthem of survival." But more typical is this 2004 take in The Guardian, in which Glenn Waldron calls the modulation "all-conquering, all-powerful". ==Commercial performance==

The song debuted at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 14, 1992 becoming the "Hot Shot Debut" of the week, and became Houston's tenth number-one entry two weeks later on November 28, unseating The Heights' "How Do You Talk to an Angel" from the top spot. Due to an "explosion" in sales and radio airplay, it was the fastest single to rise to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time since Paul and Linda McCartney's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" in 1971. Houston tied with Madonna for the most number one singles by a female artist at the time. It became Houston's longest run atop the chart, surpassing her previous record of three weeks with "Greatest Love of All" in 1986. It is also the longest running number-one single from a soundtrack album. It holds the record for the most consecutive weeks at number one in the US by a solo artist, sharing the title with Elton John's "Candle in the Wind '97" and Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)". It is the longest running female consecutive number one single in history, earning Houston a Guinness World Record. The song also dominated other Billboard charts, spending 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Single Sales chart, and 11 weeks at number one on its Hot 100 Airplay chart. The song remained at number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart for nine consecutive weeks. It was Houston's first single on the chart and her first number one. The song debuted at number 58 on the Hot R&B Singles chart on November 14, 1992 and topped the Hot R&B Singles chart on December 5, displacing "If I Ever Fall in Love" by Shai, and would spend eleven consecutive weeks at number one, becoming Houston's sixth number one single on the chart and also her longest-running chart-topper there. It established another chart record at the time, overtaking both "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles and "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye as the longest-running number one single since Billboard merged its previously separate R&B sales and airplay charts in 1958. It debuted at number 28 on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart on November 14, 1992, becoming the Hot Shot Debut of the week. Just six weeks later, on December 19, it topped the chart, displacing Michael Bolton's rendition of "To Love Somebody", where it would stay for five weeks, becoming her longest-running number one on that chart. Houston set several more chart records in the United States with the song becoming Houston's fourth "triple-crown" number one hit on Billboard after topping the pop, R&B and adult contemporary charts following its ascent to the top of the latter chart on December 19. In doing so, it matched her with Motown artist Lionel Richie for the most solo triple-crown number one singles in history. Houston remains the only female artist to accomplish this feat. It also set the record for the most simultaneous weeks at number one on three major Billboard charts as it would simultaneously stay at number one on the Hot 100, Hot R&B Singles and Adult Contemporary charts for five consecutive weeks from December 19, 1992 to January 16, 1993, breaking the 30-year chart record set by American musician Ray Charles, whose 1962 hit "I Can't Stop Loving You" had simultaneously topped all three charts for four weeks. During the song's initial chart tenure on the Billboard Hot 100, it remained in the top 40 for 24 weeks. It remains Arista Records' biggest hit. The song stayed at number one in the U.S. throughout January and February 1993, making it the first time Billboard did not rank a new number-one single until March of the new year where "A Whole New World" by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle finally unseated it. In addition, for the weeks of March 13 and March 20, 1993, the song was joined by two other Houston singles from the soundtrack -- "I'm Every Woman" and "I Have Nothing" -- in being placed inside the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100, the first time in history for a female artist. Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was also the year-end number one single of 1993 in the US. Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was also a massive international hit, topping the singles charts in almost every country, including the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles, where it spent 13 weeks at the top, then a record for a female artist. The single ruled the summit position for ten weeks in Canada, ten weeks in Australia, five weeks in Austria, seven weeks for Belgium, eight weeks in France, six weeks in Germany, eight weeks in Ireland, six weeks in the Netherlands, fourteen weeks in New Zealand, nine weeks in Norway, one week in Spain and Uruguay, six weeks in Sweden, eight weeks in Switzerland, and ten weeks in the UK. Houston's ten-week reign in the UK was the longest run at the top by a solo female artist in the history of the British singles chart, until it was overtaken by Tones & I's hit, "Dance Monkey", in 2019. Houston holds the record for the most simultaneous weeks at number one in the US and UK by a woman with ten with the song, second only to "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran. Houston set another UK chart record by blocking American singer Michael Jackson's hit "Heal the World" from the number one slot during the Christmas holiday week, making her the first female artist to have a Christmas number-one single in the country. It became the number one single of the year in the UK and was the ninth biggest single of 1993 in the same country, marking the first time in history that a song made the top ten of the year-end list twice. In Australia, it was the number 17 single of 1992 and the number two song of 1993. It was the year-end number one song for in three countries – the U.S., Canada and the UK. Houston's single sold approximately 400,000 copies in its second week at the top of the charts, making it the best-selling song in a single week surpassing Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". It broke its own record in the following three weeks, peaking at 632,000 copies in the week ending on December 27, 1992. The January 9, 1993, issue of Billboard reported it had broken its own record for most copies sold in a single week for any song in the Nielsen SoundScan era. This record was broken by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997/Something About the Way You Look Tonight", which sold 3.4 million in the final week of September 1997. "I Will Always Love You" was certified four times Platinum in the U.S. for shipments of over 4 million copies by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 12, 1993, making Houston the first solo artist with a single to reach that level in RIAA history as well as the only female artist to achieve that feat. It was also just the second single after "We Are the World" to reach four million certified units in the United States. According to Nielsen SoundScan, as of 2009, the single had sold 4,591,000 copies, and had become the second best-selling physical single in the US. On January 12, 2022, the single was certified Diamond by the RIAA for selling 10 million equivalent sales units from sales and streams, becoming the second-eldest song in history to do so after Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the third song overall in the 20th century to do so, preceded by "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Mariah Carey's 1994 Christmas single, "All I Want for Christmas is You". With this accomplishment, Houston became only the third female artist to have a diamond single and album in the United States. In the UK, the single sold over 1,550,000 copies, becoming the tenth best-selling single of the 1990s, and was certified two times Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on January 1, 1993. In doing so, it became just the second single by a female artist in UK music history after Jennifer Rush's "The Power of Love" to sell a million copies in the UK. In 1992 alone the single had sold 960,000 copies in United Kingdom. In 1993 the single sold 395,000 copies in United Kingdom. Houston earned another Guinness World Record with the song in the UK as it was deemed the best-selling UK single by a female R&B artist of all time, a record Houston also maintains to this day. It was certified Platinum for shipments of over 500,000 copies by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) in Germany. In Japan, "I Will Always Love You" sold over 810,000 copies, staying for 27 weeks on the chart, and became the best-selling single by a foreign female artist at the time, despite not topping the charts (Edward Furlong's 1992 single "Hold on Tight" kept it from reaching number one). Only a few hours after Houston's death on February 11, 2012, "I Will Always Love You" topped the US iTunes charts. A week later, the single returned to the Billboard Hot 100 after almost twenty years, debuting at number seven, and becoming a posthumous top-ten single for Houston, her first since 2001. The song eventually peaked at number three (two spots shy of repeating the feat achieved by Chubby Checker when "The Twist" returned to the top position after previously falling off the chart). It was just one of twelve songs to re-enter the Billboard Hot 100 inside the top ten and just the third song in history to do so at the time. It debuted on the Billboard Hot Digital Singles Chart at number three on the chart dated February 25, 2012, with over 195,000 copies downloaded. In the UK, the song charted at number ten the week of Houston's death. ==Accolades==

"I Will Always Love You" won the 1994 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Houston's third win in the latter category after earlier wins in 1986 and 1988. During the Grammy Award telecast, Dolly Parton and David Foster presented the latter Grammy to Houston. The song was ranked the number one single of 1993 simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B Singles year-end charts, the first time in nine years that a single accomplished the feat after "When Doves Cry" by Prince back in 1984. It was also the first song by a woman to accomplish this milestone. In addition, it received Favorite Pop/Rock Song and Favorite Soul/R&B Song awards at the 21st American Music Awards, which was the first record by a solo artist to win both categories, and the second overall in AMA history behind "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie & Diana Ross in 1982. "I Will Always Love You" won two Japan Gold Disc Awards in 1993 for International Song of the Year, and a 1994 International Song of the Year Special Award for Japanese sales of over one million units. In 2009, the ballad was ranked the 17th most played song in public places in Great Britain by Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL). In February 2013, the song was voted the number one love song of all time by The Harris Poll. In 2019, "I Will Always Love You" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2021, "I Will Always Love You" was listed at number 94 on the updated list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2023, "I Will Always Love You" was listed at number 60 on ''Billboard's'' list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time, Houston's second highest-ranked song on the list. Critic lists ==Controversy==

, the song's original performer and writer (pictured in 1977), denied tabloid reports of a feud between her and Houston over the song. After Houston's recording became a hit in 1992, the tabloid press began reporting on a 'feud' between Houston and Dolly Parton, stemming from Parton allegedly reneging on an agreement that she would not perform the song for a number of months while Houston's version was on the charts, so as not to compete with Houston's recording. However, both Parton and Houston dismissed any rumors, speaking glowingly of one another in interviews. Houston praised Parton for writing a beautiful song. In return, Parton thanked Houston for bringing her song to a wider audience and increasing the amount of royalties in the process. Parton also gave a live interview, confirming this. Parton also publicly stated she liked Houston's version of the song better than her own. Parton stated that she was “overwhelmed” and that Houston “made it so much more than it ever would have been.” When Houston won the Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female award at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards for her recording, Parton (along with David Foster) presented the award. In a statement to Billboard mourning Houston's death in February 2012, Parton said:Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston. I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.' ==Music video==

The single's music video is credited to Alan Smithee (Nick Brandt removed his name due to the way Clive Davis re-edited the video), and produced by Rob Newman. It begins with the performance of the song Houston gives at the end of The Bodyguard. The video then cuts to the singer in a dark blue suit sitting in an empty theater with the spotlight shining on her, singing of her love, and when she starts to sing her dramatic vocal finale, the theater becomes an open-air snowy field, which is meant to be at Fallen Leaf Lake, California, where The Bodyguards boat scene was filmed. The video is interspersed with scenes from the film and gives the viewer the experience of reliving the moments with Houston. At the time of the video's shooting, the singer was pregnant with her daughter Bobbi Kristina, so she is shown only sitting in the theater scenes. The video immediately premiered on MTV to heavy rotation and became one of her most popular music videos to date, also earning heavy rotation on every music video channel, including BET and VH1. On October 24, 2020, the video for "I Will Always Love You" reached at least one billion views on YouTube, making it the first music video of the 20th century by a solo artist to reach the milestone. ==Live performances==

in Milan during the Nothing but Love World Tour in May 2010 Houston would first perform the song on English comedian Des O'Connor's ITV variety show, ''Des O'Connor Tonight in late 1992. Houston would perform the song for all of the remainder of her concert tours starting with the Bodyguard World Tour (1993–1994) and ending with her final concert tour, the Nothing but Love World Tour'' (2009–2010). During the song's key chord change in shows throughout The Bodyguard World Tour, as Houston belted the chorus, pyrotechnics from the back of the stage would shoot up behind her and her band. The song was also performed live on her second HBO concert special, Whitney: The Concert for a New South Africa at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium on November 12, 1994. Houston had made history by becoming the first international artist to headline at South Africa following the end of the country's apartheid rule and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela. In the performance, the pyrotechnics shot from up in the sky. During a long pause in the performance where audiences cheered the singer on, Houston told the audience, "my heart belongs to you, South Africa", before finishing the song. The landmark performance would later be dramatized for the Houston biopic, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022). Houston also gave a memorable performance of the song at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards in March 1994, which opened the show. The performance has since been hailed as one of the greatest Grammy performances of the award ceremony's history. The performance re-aired during the 54th Annual Grammy Awards on February 12, 2012, following Houston's death and, again, in November of that year, for the Grammy special, We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston. Later in 1994, Houston performed the song at the World Music Awards and at the 1994 FIFA World Cup at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California in front of 92,000 fans at the stadium and with over a billion people watching on television. In August 1996, Houston performed the song at the Jerudong Park Amphitheater at Jerudong Park, Bandar Seri Bagawan, Brunei, for the Whitney: Brunei The Royal Wedding Celebration. Houston opened her third HBO concert special, Classic Whitney: Live from Washington, D.C. (1997) by performing the song, receiving a standing ovation. During the promotion of the album, My Love Is Your Love, in April 1999, Houston performed the song during ''Divas Live '99, receiving a standing ovation after hitting the high note after the famous delayed drum beat. A year later, she performed the song again on the Arista Records silver anniversary special, 25 Years of #1 Hits - Arista Records 25th Anniversary Celebration'' (2000); that same year she walked onstage singing the song's chorus a cappella at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards after an introduction by Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, walking out to cheers and a standing ovation. Houston performed the song, alongside "I Have Nothing" at the first annual BET Awards where she became the first recipient of the BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. Three years later, on September 15, 2004, Houston performed the song again, alongside her 1996 hit ballad, "I Believe in You and Me", at the World Music Awards at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas in what was held as a comeback performance for the artist in her first televised performance since 2003. ==Legacy and cultural impact==

Impact on music and culture Houston's vocal performance on "I Will Always Love You" has been hailed as one of the most influential moments in pop music and culture. According to Nick Levine of the BBC, the song "wasn't just a hit, but an unstoppable cultural phenomenon." Houston was credited for popularizing melisma following the release of "I Will Always Love You". Lauren Everitt from BBC News commented: "An early 'I' in Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' takes nearly six seconds to sing. In those seconds the former gospel singer-turned-pop star packs a series of different notes into the single syllable", stated Everitt. "The technique is repeated throughout the song, most pronouncedly on every 'I' and 'you'. The vocal technique is called melisma and it has inspired a host of imitators. Other artists may have used it before Houston, but it was her rendition of Dolly Parton's love song that pushed the technique into the mainstream in the 90s. [ ... ] But perhaps what Houston nailed best was moderation." Everitt said that "[i]n a climate of reality shows ripe with 'oversinging,' it's easy to appreciate Houston's ability to save melisma for just the right moment." "I Will Always Love You" is considered the "Olympic gold standard of performances". In its list of 40 best Whitney Houston songs, BET ranked it first place calling it "quite simply one of the biggest and boldest moments in American pop music history." Paste listed the rendition of the song as the tenth greatest cover of all time and wrote that while Dolly Parton's original was a "gorgeous ballad for the ages", that Houston's version "transformed it into one of the most powerful and heartbreaking proclamations of love and loss in pop music history", and that it was a "masterclass in how to sing a soul ballad." In 2015, the song was also named one of the most iconic songs of all time according to a study by Goldsmith's College, which analyzed various songs featured in numerous 'all-time best' lists, using analytical software to compare their key, BPM, chord variety, lyrical content, timbral variety, and sonic variance. In 2000, the song was voted the 40th greatest pop song since 1963 by Rolling Stone and MTV. Songfacts claimed in 2002, as the United States prepared to go to war with Iraq, Saddam Hussein had the song covered by an Iraq-based vocalist during his re-election campaign. Houston's record label filed a complaint to the Iraqi mission in the United Nations. In July 2020, a digital publication The Pudding carried out a study on the most widely-known songs from the '90s and songs that are most known by Millennials and the people of Generation Z. "I Will Always Love You" was the tenth song with the highest recognizability rate. In addition, the song has been heavily featured in box office films and TV shows since its release, including The Simpsons, American Dad, Futurama, Spider-Man: Far From Home and This Is the End among others. For Super Bowl LX, the song was used in a commercial for Bud Light starting Post Malone, Peyton Manning and Shane Gillis. Covers, samples and tributes Houston's rendition of the song has been covered over the years with 191 renditions. Among the most notable covers of Houston's rendition of the song include Zapp & Roger and Shirley Murdock, LeAnn Rimes, Keke Wyatt, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, who sang it live during her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live residency tour at the Revel resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey during May 2012, in tribute to Houston, who died that February, often covering it before segueing into her hit, "Halo", to which was also dedicated to Houston during the residency. Just days after Houston's death in February 2012, Glee actress and singer Amber Riley gave what critics called a "powerful performance" of "I Will Always Love You" on the Glee episode, "Heart". At the end of the episode, the screen faded to black and then showcased the words "Whitney Houston, 1963-2012, We Will Always Love You." That year, on the Family Guy episode, "Boopa-dee Bappa-dee", Chris Griffin sang it in his version as part of the national anthem. Hudson sang the song for Houston when she received the BET Honors Entertainers Award in January 2010 and, again, on February 12, 2012, as a tribute to Houston, who died the night before. Parton complimented Hudson on her performance, saying,I was brought to tears again last night, as I'm sure many were, when Jennifer Hudson sang "I Will Always Love You" on the Grammys in memory of Whitney. Like everybody else, I am still in shock. But I know that Whitney will live forever in all the great music that she left behind. I will always have a very special piece of her in the song we shared together and had the good fortune to share with the world. Rest in peace, Whitney. Again, we will always love you. Twelve years later, in a tribute to Houston at the 50th anniversary special for the American Music Awards, Hudson covered the song again, while also adding in the song "I Loves You, Porgy", to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Houston's legendary 1994 American Music Awards performance where she also covered "I Loves You, Porgy" along with the Dreamgirls ballad, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". In addition, the song has also been heavily sampled, with around 64 songs from various genres either directly sampling Houston's vocals from the hook or vocally reinterpreting the song's hook. Canadian deejay Sickick performed a mashup of the song along with fellow pop diva Celine Dion's own landmark hit, "My Heart Will Go On" (1997), in his 2022 song, "Go On". Other samples of the song were produced by the likes of British rapper Theophilus London, the electronic music band Salem, American rappers Twista, Juelz Santana and Gudda Gudda, American R&B group Next and singer Sheléa. The song was played at Houston's funeral as her casket was brought out of the church. The song title also served as the epitaph on Houston's gravestone. At the 2017 commencement of the University of Southern California, comedic actor Will Ferrell sang "I Will Always Love You" to the graduating class. Parton's Nashville investment In 2021, Dolly Parton reportedly told Andy Cohen on his show Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that she used some of the money she earned from composing the song to invest in a black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee as a tribute to Houston. Said Parton, "it was mostly just black families and people that lived around there," Parton said. "It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, 'This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney'." The Whitney Houston TikTok challenge In 2025, a series of videos on the video platform TikTok called "The Whitney Houston Challenge" began circulating. The challenge consists of a person or a group of people standing in front of a drum set, hoping to match the delayed famous "tom" drum beat that hits right before the final chorus. It has since been attempted by famous celebrities and musicians such as Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Paula Abdul, Calum Scott, Simple Plan and the crew of Good Morning America as well as a Slipknot cover band. ==Formats and track listings==

UK and Europe 12-inch vinyl single • A "I Will Always Love You" – 4:31 • B1 "Jesus Loves Me" – 5:11 • B2 "Do You Hear What I Hear?" – 3:31 UK, European, and U.S. 7-inch vinyl single • A "I Will Always Love You" – 4:31 • B "Jesus Loves Me" – 5:11 US and Europe maxi-CD single • "I Will Always Love You" – 4:31 • "Jesus Loves Me" – 5:11 • "Do You Hear What I Hear?" – 3:31 Maxi-CD singles (1999 remixes) • "I Will Always Love You" (Hex Hector radio edit) – 4:50 • "I Will Always Love You" (Hex Hector 12-inch club mix) – 9:51 • "I Will Always Love You" (Hex Hector Anthem dub mix) – 5:44 ==Credits and personnel==

• Performed by Whitney Houston • Produced and arranged by David Foster • Vocal arrangement – Whitney Houston • Directed by Rickey Minor • Keyboards – David Foster • Alto saxophone solo – Kirk Whalum • Drums – Ricky Lawson • Percussion – Bashiri Johnson • Guitars – Dean Parks, Michael Landau • Bass – Neil Stubenhaus • Synth programmers – Tony Smith, Claude Gaudette • String arrangements – Ronn Huff • Recording engineers – Bill Schnee, Dave Reitzas, Peter J. Yianilos • Mixing engineer – Dave Reitzas • Executive producers - Clive Davis, Whitney Houston ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts All-time charts '''Billboard Hot 100 anniversary lists''' ==Certifications and sales==