Forty-four years ago this week, on the US country singles chart dated October 16, 1982, Dolly Parton reached No. 1 with “I Will Always Love You” for the second time. The original 1974 recording had held the top spot on the chart dated June 8, 1974. The new one, cut for the film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, made her the first artist to top that chart with two different recordings of the same song.
Both runs were short. Each version spent a single week at No. 1. In 1982 the single was a double A-side, paired with a re-recording of her 1970s song “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” and it gave way on October 23 to Ronnie Milsap’s “He Got You.”
A farewell written to a boss
Parton wrote the song in 1973 as she ended a seven-year professional partnership with her mentor Porter Wagoner, on whose television program, The Porter Wagoner Show, she had been a regular. She recorded it on June 12, 1973, at RCA Studio B in Nashville, with Bob Ferguson producing. Parton later summed up its message in an interview: “It’s saying, ‘Just because I’m going don’t mean I won’t love you.” She added: “‘I appreciate you, and I hope you do great, and I appreciate everything you’ve done, but I’m out of here.'”
RCA Victor released it in March 1974 as the second single from her album Jolene. It was one of three solo country No. 1s she had that year, and the following year it earned her Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1975 CMA Awards.
The publishing decision
The song’s most famous business moment came while the first version was at the top. Elvis Presley wanted to record it, but his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told Parton that the songwriter normally signed over half of the publishing rights to any song Presley cut. She said no. Publishing is where a songwriter’s long-term income sits, since it pays out every time the song is sold, streamed, broadcast or recorded by someone else. Parton later described crying all night over the choice, then put the outcome bluntly: “Then when Whitney came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.”
Four versions, four decades
Laid out in order, the song’s chart life looks like this:
- June 8, 1974: the original, a spare 2-minute-54-second Nashville recording, reaches No. 1 on the country chart.
- October 16, 1982: the film version, recorded around February 1982 at RCA Studio A and produced by Parton with Gregg Perry, returns it to No. 1. It also topped Canada’s country and adult contemporary charts but stalled at No. 53 on the US pop chart.
- 1992: Whitney Houston’s pop-ballad arrangement for The Bodyguard goes on to a 14-week run at No. 1 on the US pop chart, then a record, and wins Record of the Year at the 1994 Grammys.
- November 1995: a duet with Vince Gill peaks at No. 15 on the country chart, the song’s third top-20 country hit for Parton.
The gap between the two country No. 1s works out to eight years and 130 days, from June 8, 1974, to October 16, 1982. The trade reviews in 1982 noticed how different the new version sounded: one praised its strings, oboe and harp, and another warned that older fans might be split over Parton’s breathier, more stylized vocal. The song itself had not changed. The arrangement had moved from a country studio band toward film-soundtrack pop.
That shift helps explain why so many listeners first met the song through Houston. Parton herself said publicly that she preferred Houston’s cover to her own. In 2020 the Library of Congress added the song to its National Recording Registry, which preserves about 25 recordings a year for their cultural, historic or aesthetic significance.
Back on the charts in 2026
Parton died on August 25, 2026, at 80, after a short illness with cancer; her nephew Bryan Seaver announced the death the same day. In late August, her 1974 recording of “I Will Always Love You” entered the US pop chart for the first time, debuting at No. 27, 52 years after it first topped the country chart.
Further reading
- Wikipedia: I Will Always Love You
- Wikipedia: List of Hot Country Singles number ones of 1982
- Wikipedia: List of Hot Country Singles number ones of 1974
Image: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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