Patti LaBelle Says Dolly Parton Offered Her 'I Will Always Love You' Before Whitney

Before Whitey Houston turned Dolly Parton‘s “I Will Love You” into one of the ’90s biggest anthems, Patti LaBelle nearly recorded a cover of it herself.
The Godmother of Soul, 75, appeared on Monday’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where she revealed on the After Show that Parton had offered the song to her before Houston sang it in 1992’s The Bodyguard.
“I said to Dolly, ‘Oh yes, I want to do that song, honey!’ ” LaBelle recalled to Cohen. “But before I could say real yes, it was in the movie and Whitney killed it.”

Read more here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other...ton/ar-AAJy0XA

If there's a version of I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU that yet needs to be heard , it might be Patti's. It's an over-the-top song as it is .....so why not crank it out all the way!!

But since when does Patti need permission to record it?? By Dolly or anybody? Why hasn't she just done it if she wants to ???

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Boogiedown

If there's a version of I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU that yet needs to be heard , it might be Patti's. It's an over-the-top song as it is .....so why not crank it out all the way!!

But since when does Patti need permission to record it?? By Dolly or anybody? Why hasn't she just done it if she wants to ???

---

When she was on THE TODAY SHOW yesterday, I believe she said something like Dolly had asked her to do it but they didn't get around to it. And then Whitney did it for THE BODYGUARD so I gather by then it was sort of untouchable. Since Patti is supposed to be working on a new album, maybe she'll do it on that.

There were some songs Patti passed on that became classics by someone else:
1.) If You Don't Know Me By Now - Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes [[well Patti eventually recorded her version in 1985 and has become something of a Patti standard now)
2.) I Feel Good All Over - Stephanie Mills [[Patti initially hated it...until "Little Patti", aka Stephanie, sung it and made it #1, she said she kept on banging her head on missing that moment)
3.) All the Man I Need - Whitney Houston [[I don't know why she passed on it but apparently she regretted it since it became part of her set list during the Burnin' Tour of 1991-92)
4.) Nobody's Supposed to Be Here - Deborah Cox [[Montell Jordan - remember him? - and Shep Crawford originally had Patti in mind when this song was written but Patti didn't care for it...until Deborah sung it)

There are more, I think, but I can't think of any. But these were off the top of my head. I know she probably was given disco songs she passed on cause she didn't wanna be a disco act.

The year Patti was probably asked to do IWALY was 1990 or 1991 when she worked on the Burnin' album but, as Patti said, they never got around to it and by the time they shot The Bodyguard, Kevin Costner convinced David Foster to have Whitney cover it and the rest is music and pop culture history.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by midnightman

There were some songs Patti passed on that became classics by someone else:
1.) If You Don't Know Me By Now - Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes [[well Patti eventually recorded her version in 1985 and has become something of a Patti standard now)
2.) I Feel Good All Over - Stephanie Mills [[Patti initially hated it...until "Little Patti", aka Stephanie, sung it and made it #1, she said she kept on banging her head on missing that moment)
3.) All the Man I Need - Whitney Houston [[I don't know why she passed on it but apparently she regretted it since it became part of her set list during the Burnin' Tour of 1991-92)
4.) Nobody's Supposed to Be Here - Deborah Cox [[Montell Jordan - remember him? - and Shep Crawford originally had Patti in mind when this song was written but Patti didn't care for it...until Deborah sung it)

There are more, I think, but I can't think of any. But these were off the top of my head. I know she probably was given disco songs she passed on cause she didn't wanna be a disco act.

The year Patti was probably asked to do IWALY was 1990 or 1991 when she worked on the Burnin' album but, as Patti said, they never got around to it and by the time they shot The Bodyguard, Kevin Costner convinced David Foster to have Whitney cover it and the rest is music and pop culture history.

---

Interesting. I would only argue that Patti did several disco tunes such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AWGo6X0Otg l



In David Fosters book he says Clive Davis released as the single a more raw version of IWALY he'd submitted to him on a cassette just to appease Clive that progress was being made on the song . He never intended that to be the actual final version , but Clive loved it just as it was.