Judges are rendered speechless when a young girl performs a Dolly Parton song that is “forbidden” on “The Voice.”
Four decades after Dolly Parton denied Elvis Presley the rights to “I Will Always Love You,” a 13-year-old Austrian girl took the ballad and made it all hers.
Laura Kamhuber played the song “forbidden,” which Whitney Houston had introduced to a new audience in 1992, brilliantly during the blind auditions for The Voice Kids.
She also momentarily silenced the judges.
Learn more about the young girl’s audition, which has received 226 million views on YouTube, by reading on!
Dolly Parton’s hit song “I Will Always Love You,” which she published that same year, was adapted by Elvis Presley in 1974.
Parton would have to forfeit half of the publishing rights of the country song she composed when she ended her career with Porter Wagoner, her longtime companion, if she accepted the terms.
And though Presley was her hero, she couldn’t bring herself to sign.
“I have an instinct that tells me not to do that. In an interview with CMT, she stated, “And I simply didn’t do it.” However, I’ve always been curious about how it might sound. He would kill it, I’m sure.It would have been slain by him. In any case, he didn’t. I then earned enough money to purchase Graceland when Whitney [Houston’s version] was released.
At the top of the charts in 1992
Whitney Houston, who appeared alongside Kevin Costner in the 1992 movie The Bodyguard, released a pop ballad of the same tune. Over 20 million copies of the song were sold worldwide, making it the best-selling single ever by a female performer.
Celine Dion is the only other female artist to have sold 18 million copies of “My Heart Will Go On,” placing her in the top 10.
“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,'” the singer of “Jolene” said in a statement following the death of pop diva in 2012. We shall miss you.
“Banned song”
When 13-year-old Laura Kamhuber appeared on stage for a blind audition of The Voice Kids the following year, she stunned the judges with her faultless rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”
All three judges turned their chairs to coach the middle schooler after praising the young Austrian who was participating in the German version of the well-known singing competition.
German pop sensation Tim Bendzko informed Kamhuber that she had just performed “the forbidden song” following her chilling performance. “You’re not actually allowed to sing this song because it’s unsingable,” he said, referring to Houston’s difficult-to-match vocal range.
“You just sang it sensationally,” Bendzko continues. It was amazing.
Even though the 24-year-old Kamhuber was later ousted in the show’s knockout rounds, her famous audition has received 226 million views, making it the most watched Austrian artist’s YouTube video.
The woman, whose stage name is Laura Lun, has since put out three albums, the most recent of which was released in 2017 and includes pop, country, and ballads.
Listen to Laura Kamhuber’s audition and share your thoughts with us!
