Kelly Clarkson And Team Kelly Stand Up To Sing "I Will Always Love You" Live

Apr 06, 2020 by apost team

During The Voice’s 15th season, American Idol star Kelly Clarkson joined her team of contestants to sing the legendary farewell ballad ‘I Will Always Love You’ in front of the show’s studio audience back in 2018. The non-competition performance was part of an episode featuring the show’s top 13 contestants.

It’s a song that’s been performed, covered and remixed countless times by talented musicians from the original Dolly Parton to Whitney Houston’s well-known rendition. According to Country Music Nation, Parton originally released the song back in 1974 as a tribute to her longtime business partner, Porter Wagoner, paving the way for the emotional track to become one of America’s most popular songs. And like most signature hits, other talented musicians could not keep their hands off of it. In the ‘90s, Houston starred in the 1992 film The Bodyguard while also releasing her own rendition of the popular track for the movie’s soundtrack. The late R&B artist’s unbelievable range and vocal strength lended itself perfectly to the ballad — and since then, the track has become a sort of rite of passage for singing contestants across the world. If you can sing I Will Always Love You as well as Parton or Houston, then that’s proof of some real talent.

What makes Clarkson and her team’s performance so unique is that group highlights their individual strengths, a range of vocal styles. Whereas singing duets are fairly common in the pop music industry — think of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s Islands In The Stream — it’s rare that five talented musicians team up to take on the same track on the same stage.

apost.com

Clarkson, the team’s mentor for the show, starts off the performance, but she quickly hands off the following lines to the rest of the contestants, making for a beautiful multi-voiced performance. Towards the end of the track, you can even hear all five of the singers joining in on an incredible vocal harmony, the texture of which is hard to describe in words. Suffice it to say that applause for the vocal quintet was long and loud.

Clarkson first joined The Voice as a coach in 2018 during Season 14, joining fellow pop music stars Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, according to Variety. Though Clarkson had wanted to work with the show in the past, Variety reports that until Season 14, the star had a variety of scheduling conflicts with the television series. 

“We’ve gone back and forth about a role as a coach for years, but the timing hasn’t been right until now,” Clarkson told Variety in 2017. “I have always loved appearing on the show as an adviser or performer and established an amazing relationship with the network during my Christmas special. I can’t wait to turn my chair and see the faces of up-and-coming artists and provide them with the help and support they’ve needed to break into the industry. Watch out Shelton, I’m comin’ to win!”

And safe to say that longtime Clarkson fans are happy to see her back on the competition stage — albeit this time as a mentor and not a contestant. As her team performance shows, Clarkson isn’t just another television personality. With her unbelievable range, genre-bending talent and cheerful attitude, she is undoubtedly among America’s greatest vocalists.

What did you think of Kelly Clarkson & Team Kelly's rendition of I Will Always Love You? How do they compare to Whitney Houston's version? Let us know and pass this on to your musical friends and family.