{"id":660263,"date":"2026-08-28T02:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/660263\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T02:42:11","slug":"dolly-parton-wasnt-eligible-for-grammy-for-i-will-always-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/660263\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolly Parton Wasn\u2019t Eligible for Grammy for \u2018I Will Always Love You\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhitney Houston<\/a> won two Grammys for her blockbuster hit \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d at the 36th Grammy Awards on March 1, 1994. She took record of the year and best pop vocal performance, female. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs the producer of the smash, David Foster <\/a>shared the award for record of the year and also won producer of the year, non-classical, largely because of his work on the hit. But Dolly Parton<\/a> wasn\u2019t recognized for writing the song. She would have been a shoo-in to win song of the year but wasn\u2019t eligible. She had first recorded the song in 1974, taking it to No. 1 on Hot Country Songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, songs that were already well-known weren\u2019t eligible? That rule has changed over the years.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust two years earlier, Irving Gordon won song of the year for \u201cUnforgettable,\u201d which had been a pop standard for 40 years at that point, since Nat King Cole<\/a> and Doris Day<\/a> had recorded it in the early 1950s. Dinah Washington had a top 20 hit on the Hot 100 with the song in 1959. It won in 1992 because Natalie Cole\u2019s sentimental recording of the song as a duet with her late father brought it back to prominence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUnforgettable\u201d was a great song, no doubt, but should it have taken the top songwriting award in 1992 against such great contemporary songs as R.E.M.<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLosing My Religion\u201d or Marc Cohn\u2019s \u201cWalking in Memphis\u201d (both of which were also nominated in that category)?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Recording Academy decided the eligibility rule needed to be tightened, so that already famous songs wouldn\u2019t be eligible. That was bad news for Parton\u2019s song, even though it was no more famous pre-The Bodyguard than \u201cUnforgettable\u201d was prior to Natalie Cole<\/a>\u2019s revival of the song.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Grammys have tinkered with the rules on song of the year (and also best new artist, for different reasons) many times, trying to strike just the right balance. The current rule states: \u201cA song\u2026 must have been released on a recording for the first time, or achieved prominence for the first time, during the current eligibility period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMost of the song of the year winners in Grammy history were new songs that year, or songs that weren\u2019t previously widely known. Jimmy Driftwood\u2019s \u201cThe Battle of New Orleans,\u201d which won in 1960, was written way back in 1936, but had not been a hit until Johnny Horton covered it in 1959.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are eight song of the year winners preceding \u201cUnforgettable\u201d that were already known to widely varying degrees. The years shown are the years of the Grammy presentations.<\/p>\n