When Whitney Houston accepted a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, she paid tribute to Dolly Parton (the song's original author), who presented her with the award. Whitney kissed her husband at the time, Bobby Brown on the cheek before skipping on stage and hugging Parton and co-presenter David Foster. Houston placed the award on the floor before thanking Dolly Parton, saying "Dolly, of course, coming from you, this is truly an honour, you wrote a beautiful song, thank you so much, for writing such beautiful songs, really."
Now, following the news of Whitney Houston's death at the age of 48, it is Dolly's turn to pay tribute to Whitney; the star that made that song famous across the globe. On Saturday, Parton released a statement that, according to Reuters, read "I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.'" The song was originally written by Parton as a farewell song to her partner and mentor, Porter Wagoner, when they were ending their relationship. At the 1994 Grammys, Parton joked "I'd like to thank Whitney for making my song such an enormous hit. when I wrote that song 22 years ago, I had a heart ache; it's amazing how healing money cane be."
In the wake of Whitney's passing, Parton stands to benefit even further, as the song has inevitably shot to the top the iTunes download chart and has also experienced a "resurgence" on the Amazon chart, as well. Both Sony and iTunes have been criticized for increasing the price of Houston's music online after the news of her death broke in the media.