Blog Posts by Chris Willman

It's all those other stars who died from monkeying around, succumbing to the temptations associated with fame. Not Davy Jones, who seemed to be the picture of good habits and health — if not the portrait of Dorian Gray — before he died of a heart attack at 66 Wednesday morning in Florida.

"You know I used to be a heartthrob and now I'm a coronary," Jones said in an interview last August with the Broadway World website, surely little realizing that his quip might actually serve as a witty, spooky epitaph.

Last week most of the top country radio programmers and DJs in the nation traveled to Nashville for a week of free-flowing music and beer at the Country Radio Seminar, Nashville's biggest annual industry-only confab. All the top labels hosted blowout parties or concerts for what they like to call their "radio partners" -- i.e., the sometimes fickle folks they know can make or break the careers of returning superstars as well as newcomers. Our Country was on the scene to take in all those high-profile showcases and low-key parties, too. What did we learn?

Miranda Lambert is raising her glove in victory in the Chris Brown kerfuffle. Lambert's only appearance at CRS was at a very small, private guitar pull she shared with current tour mates Chris Young and Jerrod Niemann, performing for about 100 invitees in front of a giant flag in a boutique that sells Italian boots. Inevitably, the subject of her taking on Chris Brown came up. "I don't like to start crap, and I'm not one to..." Someone

You probably already knew that Whitney Houston's recording of "I Will Always Love You" is one of the biggest singles of the last 25 years... and the song that defined her legacy, as proven by its use as the lone ballad of homage to Houston at Sunday night's Grammys. Maybe you even know that a not-so-behind-the-scenes songsmith named Dolly Parton wrote and first recorded it, almost 20 years before Whitney spent a then-record 14 weeks at the top of the singles chart in 1992-93 with what turned out to be her signature song.

But did you know that Kevin Costner is the one who found the song for Houston? That a cash dispute scotched an Elvis Presley recording of the tune? Or that Saddam Hussein was also a huge fan? Here are a dozen lesser-known facts about the power ballad that America and the world will always love:

Dolly Parton wrote it about a professional breakup, not a personal one.

When Parton wrote it in 1973, it was as a farewell to her mentor, producer, and longtime duet partner,

(photo: John Shearer/WireImage)What will we be talking about from the Grammys at work on Monday? Maybe not so much, because we'll all be on our computers, getting a copy of Adele's 21, if we're among the seeming minority of Americans who haven't downloaded it already... or wishing there were a 17 or 23, if we have.

Although Adele had been expected to be the big winner at the Grammys even before nominations came out, her Album/Record/Song triple-crown hardly accounted for the only buzz of the night--not on an evening when Whitney Houston's spirit hovered over the whole affair...and Nicki Minaj literally hovered.

Television was how we experienced most of Whitney Houston's most culture-consuming triumphs... and also where we went to assess her state of health and mind when substance abuse and marital problems took a toll. From her Super Bowl supremacy to "whack is crack," and from Grammy greatness to "Being Bobby Brown," here are 13 of the moments that galvanized TV (and eventually web) viewers.

THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW (1985)

Record mogul Clive Davis first used his influence to introduce Houston to home audiences via the unlikely vehicle of Merv Griffin's daytime talk show. Looking a little less glamorous than the diva we'd soon come to know, the 21-year-old sang "Home," a ballad from "The Wiz." "We won't forget that name," affirmed Merv, theretofore not really regarded as a prophet.

"HOW WILL I KNOW" CONQUERS MTV (1986)

Houston and MTV were a marriage waiting to happen. But her previous music videos had been more on the sedate side, and MTV was then still facing charges of being rock-ist and

(Gabriel Olsen/FilmMagic)Anyone who'd followed reports of Whitney Houston's bizarre behavior in the days leading up to the Grammys had to have been "shocked, but not surprised" at reports of her demise, as the saying goes. Thursday in particular had been an obviously rough day in public for the troubled singer, whose appearance and behavior raised eyebrows among reporters, photographers, and regular folks who witnessed her erratic rounds.

Prior to getting the Grammys' lifetime achievement award in a few days, Glen Campbell stopped by the Grammy Museum's 200-seat theater in downtown L.A. for one of the most intimate shows he's ever done. As small as the venue is, there was still an elephant in the room: Campbell's Alzheimer's, which makes every show a potential adventure.

No one, including the museum director who conducted a brief Q&A, was eager to address that elephant... except, in an offhanded, disarmingly jokey way, Campbell himself.

"I forget a lot lately! Do y'all ever get that?" he playfully asked at one point between songs.

photo: Christopher Polk/Getty ImagesSo, who used whom in the Madonna/M.I.A. Super Bowl halftime controversy--per that already famous middle finger that M.I.A. offered tens of millions of viewers before the censors could get to it? Did Madonna encourage this insurrection from her guest rapper, so that she'd have some provocation in her otherwise family-friendly set without having to take the rap herself? Or was M.I.A. using Madonna and the Super Bowl to get attention for her own new video and forthcoming album? Or maybe just driven to atone, in her own outrageous way, for having sold out in agreeing to be Madonna's celebrity cheerleader?