Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston: Actor-Singer Claims Responsibility for Icon's Biggest Hit

Most people know Kevin Costner as an Oscar-winning actor, director and the star of blockbusters like Dances With Wolves. But Costner has been slinging a guitar for as long as he's been gracing the silver screen -- and music, in many ways, has had a huge impact on his career.

"It's worked its way into almost every facet," Costner tells AOL Music Blog during a visit to Toronto.

He's playing music in one form or another for most of his career, sometimes even writing songs while he's making movies. He even played a part in one of the biggest hits in music history when he suggested that his co-star Whitney Houston cover a little Dolly Parton number called "I Will Always Love You" for The Bodyguard.

"It's a great song and I thought that the sentiment of it was something that was powerful," he recalls. Not everyone was on board at first, but his passion for the tune soon won over Houston and producer David Foster. "That was not what you would call a conventional choice or even close to it. But everybody began to understand how the song could work and then Whitney did a beautiful job of it. David Foster was really important in the understanding that I wasn't going to back off and embraced what I needed."


It wasn't until a few years ago that Costner, with the encouragement of his wife Christine, decided to seriously pursue music. Forming country rock band Kevin Costner and Modern West in 2007, he started by playing small and unassuming live shows, careful not to exploit his fame and let the music speak for itself.

"I haven't tried to force myself on any situation,"he says. "I haven't tried to use celebrity. That's always going to be there. I can't run away from it. The curiosity factor is very high. But this band gets on a bus and goes. We work in a very old-fashioned way, how we go about our business. I'm not hitting the radio stations trying to drive a single. It's just not who I am. If it happens, it happens."

And happen it has. Those live shows turned into three albums, with a fourth, a concept album inspired by his forthcoming History Channel mini-series, Hatfields & McCoys, on the way.

Costner believes that the secret to the band's success is the connection that they've formed with their audiences, and the way that their songs resonate with them.

"Anybody can make a record," he says. "But can you go hold an audience for an hour and a half with your original music? Try it. If you think it's easy, try it. You can't hold them with celebrity. You can't hold them with music that doesn't work. It has to connect and it has to have a level of meaning and I try to find that."

Fans across Europe and America have really responded to the music and the meaning behind it, but it seems like Modern West are developing a particularly special bond with their Canadian listeners.

"We've been here two times already," Costner recalls. "But every time I come across the border, it's been a really good thing. We've worked on both sides, out in Vancouver and Calgary, places deep in the mountains, Halifax. So we've logged a lot of places in Canada. This has been a very good place for our band."

The band have just wrapped up a few more dates in the great white north, but they'll be back this summer for the first annual Boots and Hearts Festival, a giant country music festival going down in Bowmanville, Ontario from August 10-12 where they'll share the stage with luminaries like Tim McGraw, Kid Rock, Carrie Underwood, Alabama and more.

"Sometimes things build, but the way they're starting, this is with a bang," Costner says about the festival. "They're inviting really top-level people, so it was nice to be included."

After that, his plans are a little more tentative. He might enjoy a post-Boots and Hearts Canadian vacation with his young family, he'll continue to work on the band's fifth album, which he thinks will be a slightly more chill affair than their previous offerings.

"It seems a little mellower right now," he muses. "It doesn't feel like anything right now is blazing."

Whatever does come next, though, it's sure to involve a mix of acting, directing and music. When asked if he could ever pick just one art form, Costner shakes his head.

"Yeah, I don't don't even know how to answer that. It's... I've been really lucky in my life."