What I mean is, when did singers at sporting events start putting their personal touches on the Star Spangled Banner? It seems to be expected of them now, but I recall there being a big to-do about Jose Feliciano’s renditon at a world series game in the early 1970s. Never heard it myself but the responses ranged from “awesome”***** to “blasphemy!”. Was he the first to transform it from straight forward singing to a performance in and of itself?
*Okay, they probably didn’t say “awesome” back then. More like “groovy”
But some still sing it straight. During the 1985 World Series, the sixth game, the Oak Ridge Boys sang the SSB. I barely knew who they were. But they sang it straight, in four part harmony, and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since.
And Toni Tenille, at a World Series game, asked the stadium, “Won’t you please join me in singing our National Anthem?” Then she sang it straight.
My father, the most conservative and law abiding of men, said “It would have been worth getting arrested if I could have run onto the field and pulled the microphone away from Roseanne Barr.” I told him I would have run interference for him with stadium security.
However, a few weeks before that, Aretha Franklin did what I remember to be a very soulful version of the Star Spangled Banner at the Democratic Connvention in Chicago. I can’t find it on Google, so I have no idea if it was as “personal” as I remember it.
There were probably more people watching Feliciano than Franklin, however (who the hell actually watches the opening ceremony of a political convention?), and Feliciano’s version was definitely controversial. The funny thing was, Marvin Gaye also sang the anthem at the WS (the game before Feliciano) and did a very straight rendition.
Whenever it started, it should stop, starting right now. It’s about the song, the country, and its people, not the performer’s vocal gymnastics or their desire to show off. Hell, I’d settle for them getting the words right.
Thanks for the link kunilou. I bounced around youtube for a while and found the original live recording. Kind of mild compared to today’s “slide around one note for 60 seconds” singers.
And, not to hijack my own thread, but I also came across Jose doing an excellent version of Mule Skinner Blues.
Oddly, I remember Gaye singing TSSB at a *boxing event some years earlier, and it did it rather straight–as I recall. *I don’t remember the contestants, but I do know it was on ABC, because I recall Cosell intoning, “That MAN can SING!”
