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Whitney Houston: The Star-Spangled Banner

As the Fourth approaches....just a moment to remember the greatest "Star-Spangled Banner" of all time, Whitney Houston's:

*Houston was 27 years old when she performed this song at the Super Bowl.
*She had pre-recorded the song. At the actual event, she sang live into a dead mic. One otherworldly feature of this moment is how utterly at ease Houston seems, despite being viewed closely by trillions of people.

*Houston and her team made the song in 4/4 time; it had usually been done in 3/4 time (brisk, a little waltzy). Making things 4/4 meant slowing things down, increasing the level of technical difficulty, creating a bluesy aura. Producers worried that the audience wouldn't like this, and would struggle to sing along. Houston shrugged. Meh.
*The recording became a huge hit, and after 9/11, it became a huge hit ONCE AGAIN. The post-9/11 run meant that "Star-Spangled Banner" was the final Top Ten hit of Houston's career.

*Whitney Houston was a black kid from New Jersey who became an international superstar. Her distant relation was Leontyne Price, who made waves in opera, and opera was a world still comfortable with black- and yellowface as late as 2016. Whitney Houston must have been aware of many ironies she didn't speak about; for example, at the Grammy Awards, in front of a racist institution, she once famously sang, "I will be free." She sang it three times.

All of this is adapted from a piece that either won or came close to winning a National Magazine Award:
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/14673003/the-story-whitney-houston-epic-national-anthem-performance-1991-super-bowl

Happy Fourth of July.
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