![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Colonel-Tom-Parker-ruined-Elvis-Presleys-chance-to-record-a-pop-hit-that-eventually-sold-3600000.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Credit: Far Out \/ Public Domain<\/p>\n
Mon 12 October 2026 0:00, UK <\/p>\n
An infamous figure who changed music management forever, Colonel Tom Parker was one of\u00a0Elvis Presley<\/a>\u2019s greatest assets during the rock star\u2019s rise to fame through the 1950s and 1960s. In many ways, though, Presley\u2019s manager was also his greatest enemy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even the most cursory of Tom Parker biographies gets across the idea that the rock-and-roll manager was as ruthless as he was bizarre and eccentric. Having emigrated from his native Netherlands to the United States during the late 1920s, Parker was \u2013 and remained \u2013 an undocumented immigrant, which later formed the prevailing reason why Presley never toured overseas<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t the only issue with Parker\u2019s management style, either. Although the Colonel did secure Presley\u2019s deal with RCA, setting him on a path to becoming the defining rock star of the 1950s with a string of hit singles and film appearances under his belt, the manager was taking the lion\u2019s share of Presley\u2019s earnings throughout his career. Some might call that exploitative; the Presley estate certainly did, suing Parker after the singer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n As you can imagine, then, Presley\u2019s career is awash with \u2018what-if\u2019 moments, in which he was steered away from opportunities by the Colonel. For instance, his desire to be a serious film actor was quashed when his manager talked him out of accepting<\/a> the lead role in A Star Is Born in 1976, owing to the idea that he would have to share the limelight with Barbra Streisand. <\/p>\n Earlier, Presley lost out on another lucrative venture thanks to the efforts of his manager. When country icon and Presley fan Dolly Parton reached the top of the country charts in 1974 with her original composition \u2018I Will Always Love You\u2019, \u2018The King\u2019 reportedly took to the song so strongly that he asked whether he could record his own version. <\/p>\n That was when Parker stepped in, informing Parton that if Presley were to cover her song, she would have to sign over half of the publishing rights, effectively giving the Presley camp royalties for a song he had nothing to do with. Ever the savvy businesswoman, Parton refused, and Presley didn\u2019t record the song. <\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m really sorry\u2019, and I cried all night,\u201d Parton once recalled of her decision to turn Presley down. \u201cI said, \u2018I can\u2019t do that. Something in my heart says, \u2018Don\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d To be fair to Parton, her single was successful enough<\/a>, topping the country charts both in 1974 and upon its re-recording in 1982 for the soundtrack of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n More famously, though, the unmistakable voice of Whitney Houston lent itself to the song in 1992, for the soundtrack of The Bodyguard. That recording is among the best-known and most successful singles of the entire 20th century, becoming a worldwide number-one hit, spending 14 weeks at the top of the US singles charts and ten weeks at the top of the UK\u2019s, along with earning Houston two Grammy Awards. <\/p>\n As Parton put it, \u201cWhen Whitney came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.\u201d Had Presley recorded the song, his version would have stood a decent chance of being just as successful, but it would have come at the cost of Parton\u2019s rightful share of earnings. So, once again, Colonel Parker had put a spanner in the works<\/a> of \u2018The King\u2019 following his own creative desires. <\/p>\n Still, Parker\u2019s meddling at least left the song free for its most famous rendition, or the world might never have known Houston\u2019s career-defining performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Public Domain Mon 12 October 2026 0:00, UK An infamous figure who changed music…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2616,289691,236,7399,57158,15762,88,12249,143782],"class_list":["post-879348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-1970s","tag-289691","tag-celebrities","tag-dolly-parton","tag-elvis","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-rock-and-roll","tag-whitney-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}