We Will Always Love You
As we wrap up the year this week and look back at 2012, and among other things, we think of folks who passed away this year, we might note that the world of popular music lost some luminaries, including Etta James, Donna Summer, Robin Gibb, Davy Jones, Adam Yauch, Andy Williams, Dave Brubeck, and Ravi Shankar. This list from The Guardian includes those individuals and others from the field of music who died this year.
Perhaps no one on that list, though, has been publicly mourned as much as Whitney Houston, who passed away on February 11 at the age of 48. Exactly 20 years ago today, Houston was spending her fifth week at number one on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart with what would be the biggest hit of her career, “I Will Always Love You.” The remake of the song originally written and recorded by Dolly Parton would not only be the biggest hit of Houston’s career; it would at the time break the record for most weeks at number one, by spending a total of 14 weeks at the top of the Hot 100. (That record would later be eclipsed by “One Sweet Day” by Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey, which spent 16 weeks at the top between December 1995 and March 1996.) The song also provides a title that seems fitting as a theme for remembering Houston and the other popular music artists who passed away this year.
