The same song went viral after a 13-year-old Austrian girl performed it in such a beautiful way, that to this day has touched the heart of hundreds of millions of people around the world, a good 40 years after Dolly Parton made the difficult but brilliant choice to deny Elvis Presley to the rights to her famous ballad.
Dolly Parton originally wrote this song in 1973 and released it in the year 1974, and it is an ode to her professional partner, Porter Wagoner, to say goodbye. The song was a country hit however; it made a dramatic twist in the song when Elvis Presley showed interest in recording the song. The manager of the King, Colonel Tom Parker, demanded that Elvis can only record the song with the condition Parton transfer half of the publishing rights.
She had adored Presley, but Parton had declined, which meant she had spit straight in the face of artistic integrity, and that declaration had graced her bank account exponentially in ways she could not have imagined. There is something in my heart that says, Don not do that. I simply failed to do it,” she remembered in one of the CMT interviews. So much money that Whitney Houston made through her version even allowed her to buy Graceland as Parton later remarked.
That version was in 1992 when Whitney Houston released the song in the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, where he co-starred with Kevin Costner. The hit-hammering recording proved to be a cultural benchmark and it sold more than 20 million copies making it the ultimate selling single of all time by a single female artist. Houston turned the heart-wrenching country song into a universal ode of eternal love and separation with soaring vocals and heart rending pathos. Celine Dion, her hit, My Heart Will Go On, sold 18 million copies, the only other woman who has been within the same field of success.
After the death of Houston in 2012, Dolly Parton paid a tribute in honor of her life and song in an emotional manner where she stated, I will be forever thankful and amazed at how her performance on my song went and I can say this, Whitney I will always love you. You will be missed.”
In 2013, only a year after, the torch of I Will Always Love You went to Laura Kamhuber, 13-year-old girl singing on The Voice Kids Germany show. Kamhuber went with what judge Tim Bendzko referred to as the forbidden song as the background to its vocal acrobatics and nearly sacred stature in pop culture that the Houston rendition occupies. Unleashing a beautiful fluidity in her manner of singing with a confident stillness, Kamhuber made the song sound magnificent, not only not disrespecting the legacy of it, but making the song find a new place in the minds of a new generation.
The young singer brought all three judges to turn in their chairs in a race to mentor her by the power of her raw talent and apparent emotional depth. Bendzko, marveling, called her performance sensational and continued to say that the song is thought to be taboo merely because it can not be sung. And Kamhuber, of more grace than her years then surely possessed, rose above them.
She did not make it to finals of the competition, but her audition did not die. The song was uploaded to YouTube and currently has more than 226 million views, becoming the most viewed video of an Austrian act. At 24 and going by the stage name of Laura Lun, she has now released three albums, the last of which came in 2017 a compilation of pop, country and ballad style songs and is just as much proof that she still possesses all the versatility and emotional honesty that millions fell in love with initially.
It is the tale of love, separation, heart, and memorial, not of Parton and her lady-of-the-land farewell, nor Houston and her eternal performance, but that of a young girl choosing to conquer the so-called evil song and making it her own. The performance of Laura Kamhuber can be seen as the sign of the strength of music, which can overcome generations, borders, and expectations- and may show once again why this ballad can remain a good procession even after many years.
