At the risk of turning this into a Whitney Houston theme week, I thought I’d give some props to the woman who wrote and originally performed the song we’ve all heard ad nauseum since Houston died.
Dolly Parton must be making a fortune these days from the royalties she earns on ‘I Will Always Love You.’ Talk about a gift that keeps on giving. The day Kevin Costner suggested Whitney Houston cover this track for the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, he lined Ms. Parton’s pockets for years to come.
This is not my belated Whitney Houston eulogy. I was unmoved by her passing, as I tend to be by the passing of celebrities.
I believe the last celebrity death that had a real impact on me was Kurt Vonnegut’s, and he was old enough and unhealthy enough that it didn’t come as a major shock. Houston’s death wasn’t much of a shock, either — as with the passing of Amy Winehouse, my first thought upon hearing the news was, “and she seemed so well put-together.”
Today’s Random Weekend selection is making up for a past sin.
When I spent a three weeks last year walking through Bruce Springsteen’s discography an album at a time, I skipped one in order to fit the series into the allotted time frame. That album was We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen’s 2006 collection of classic folk songs.
Today, that record gets its due.
My first random selection this weekend is the title track from Fiona Apple’s third (and most recent) album, Extraordinary Machine.
It’s been seven years since this album was released and Apple’s fans are still waiting on new material. This woman certainly can’t be accused of flooding the marketplace. According to a recent tweet by Epic Records CEO L.A. Reid, a new Fiona Apple album is due sometime this year. But I’ll believe that when I see it.
I’ve come across several dozen covers of ‘Make You Feel My Love’ from Bob Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind, but just about every one of them is described as an Adele cover.
No doubt many, if not most, of those singers believe Adele wrote the song. It’s not as if her version is different from Dylan’s (apart from the vocals, of course) so that covering Adele’s version is somehow different from covering Dylan’s. She was faithful to the original.
