Chris Stapleton put his own set aside partway through a concert at Jones Beach in Wantagh, New York on 26 August 2026 and played I Will Always Love You. Dolly Parton had died the previous day at 80, and the song was hers twice over: she wrote it, and she cut the record that made it a standard in country music.
What he did with it was not an impression. Stapleton rebuilt the song around a guitar and sang it in the register he actually has, which is a rougher and heavier instrument than the one Parton used on the original. Fan video of it went around fast, and the crowd ended up singing along with him.
The comments filled with one word, incredible, and another watcher settled on absolutely beautiful. One X user suggested he put the recording out the way Combs had done with Fast Car and send the proceeds to the Imagination Library, adding that Stapleton was about the only singer who could carry it vocally. He has not said whether he will.
Parton wrote the song in 1973 as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, her television partner and mentor, when she decided to leave his show and go solo. He sued her for breach of contract afterwards, and the two were friends again well before his death in 2007. Her original went to No. 1 in 1974. She took it back to No. 1 in 1982 with a re-recording for the soundtrack to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and a 1995 duet with Vince Gill reached No. 15, the last Top 20 hit of her career.
The version most people know is not any of those. Whitney Houston recorded it for The Bodyguard in 1992 and spent 14 weeks at No. 1 with it, which made it one of the largest pop singles ever released. That is the shadow any singer reaching for the song walks into, and part of why the ones who try it in public tend to be singers with something unusual in the throat.
Parton died on 25 August 2026 after a short battle with cancer, and her funeral was private. The response to the catalogue was immediate: five of her songs entered the Billboard Global 200 within days, and her cancer diagnosis only became public as the tributes ran. The Jones Beach date was part of the 2026 run of Stapleton's All-American Road Show.
The facts
- Stapleton played the song at Jones Beach in Wantagh, New York on 26 August 2026
- He rearranged it for guitar and sang it in a grittier register than Parton's
- Parton wrote the song in 1973 as a farewell to Porter Wagoner
- Her original topped the country chart in 1974
- She hit No. 1 with it again in 1982 from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
- A 1995 duet with Vince Gill reached No. 15 and was her last Top 20 hit
- Whitney Houston's 1992 version spent 14 weeks at No. 1
- Dolly Parton died on 25 August 2026 at the age of 80
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