Favorite rendition of The American National Anthem?
Leslie Nielsen's in "The Naked Gun."
shareIf I MUST favor a dreadful musical composition, I can:
Jimmi Hendrix, Live At Woodstock. The Star-Spangled Banner tendered as banshee-wailed military nightmare. No one else has captured Keys’ dreadfully-composed musical travesty as well. We feel “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air”
as this guitar genius blasted his music into the stratosphere.
The other example I offer is almost the antipodal opposite, but nearly the artistic equivalent, of Jimi’s rendition: jazz great Brian Bromberg’s rendition of The Banner on his Grammy-winning album, Wood. Playing his acoustical, stand-up bass as if it were a lead guitar, and solo, Bromberg plays the most joyous, playful, ebullient and jazzy rendition of The Banner that I have EVER heard. America has only two native post-Columbian
art forms: jazz music, and rock n’ roll music. Hendrix NAILED the rock version of our current national anthem. Bromberg, through jazz, transformed a strightlaceed, staid, stullted and dull recitation presented in too many stadia into a celebration of American music. Bravo!