Best Star Spangled Banner Performance: Diana Ross

 

Diana Ross was the first pop star to perform the national anthem at a Super Bowl, and her 1982 performance set a standard not yet surpassed at any professional sports venue. From high school to professional sports events, Americans have long started these secular public rites with our national anthem. The NFL had long leaned on college marching bands and choruses, but broke from tradition with a pop star actually past the peak of her genre. Diana Ross, Motown royalty, rose to the occasion in Detroit’s Silverdome Stadium, setting the standard for future performers.

There are three basic rules for a good national anthem vocal performance:

  1. Get the lyrics right
  2. Stay on tune
  3. It ain’t about you; points off for stylizing in most forums

Diana Ross knocked all of these out of the stadium, and she did it without a net. She sang unaccompanied and without auto-tune correcting her pitch. She knew the words by heart, to the level of not stumbling in front of a large live and nationally televised audience.

Listen to the beginning. She gives a brief introduction, inviting the live audience and players to sing with her.

Can we sing, our national anthem, with authority?

Sing with me.

Diana Ross then makes a short gesture with her microphone that cues a pianist, off-screen, to give her the first note. Just the first note, mind you. Then she launches into a completely straightforward rendition, without any of her craft’s signature vocal ornamentation. The audience responds by listening in silence and then singing along with Miss Diana Ross. You see some of the very rough-looking football players of the era joining in towards the end.

There have been any good and bad, great and occasionally ghastly performances.* Yes, Whitney Houston gave an amazing dramatic performance at Super Bowl XXV, but I stand by my claim that Motown star Diana Ross set the gold standard for all professional sports venue performances of the Star-Spangled Banner back at Super Bowl XVI, in the Motor City.

What say you?

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* Honorable Mention to Demi Lovato for getting the lyrics right, singing on tune (with autotune assumed), and not significantly stylizing after her platinum album achievement.

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  1. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Quietpi (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Your counter-argument regarding the piano is legit. My counter-argument to your counter-argument is that the piano note served two purposes: 1) to tell Ross the tape had started, and 2) to give the pitch to the fans she’d just exhorted to sing. (Anyone who has attended a birthday party where somebody counts to three and we all start singing knows why this matters.)

    Calling Diana Ross an honest-to-goodness pro singer is a true thing. Implying that Whitney Houston was not — even by comparison — is not. Maybe that’s not what you meant to imply, but I thought I’d nip that in the bud. Houston is on the shortest of short lists.

    Re: Houston, no comparison intended. I’m not a big pop music fan of any genera. I know the Houston name, and I’m certain that I’ve heard her recordings. Don’t know that I’ve ever heard the Houston version of the National Anthem. I’m very aware that many rock musicians have their start in “classical” music and training, and for many it remains their first love. The ones who are sensations simply via electronics usually don’t last very long.

    • #31
  2. Darin Johnson Member
    Darin Johnson
    @user_648569

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no!  She’s one of the very best ever.  You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing. 

    • #32
  3. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range.  Trouble is relative.

    • #33
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    One of the critical things – necessary but not sufficient – for a great singer is range.  Houston had that big-time, another favorite of mine although she didn’t display it in quite the same way, is Heather Nova (nee Heather Frith) who also writes her own songs, and plays many instruments too.

     

    • #34
  5. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe.  All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    • #35
  6. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Not really.

     

    • #36
  7. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Not really.

    Sorry, I’m not falling for it.  There is no way I’m going to get an ear worm listening to Intensity Houston.

     

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Skyler (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Not really.

    Sorry, I’m not falling for it. There is no way I’m going to get an ear worm listening to Intensity Houston.

     

    Something else that’s never happened to me:  getting an “ear worm” of any song or singer that I actually don’t like.

    • #38
  9. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Not really.

    Your argument is best made with a live performance. Like this, perhaps:

    • #39
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Not really.

    Your argument is best made with a live performance. Like this, perhaps:

    Well, those are both intense songs.  What’s your point?

    • #40
  11. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Houston is a one trick pony who only has one trick — singing at extremely high intensity in every annoying note.

    A thousand times, no! She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    Mid intensity maybe. All she has is one constant INTENSITY.

    Did you hear her sing the Star Spangled Banner?  She had full volume control, and used it.

    • #41
  12. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    I played this on the sax, exactly the way she sings it with grace notes, and it’s really got great diversity in volume, timber and “intensity”.  She does this very, very well.  Very, very, very well.  And perfect pitch throughout.

     

    • #42
  13. Darin Johnson Member
    Darin Johnson
    @user_648569

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Darin Johnson (View Comment):

    She’s one of the very best ever. You don’t have to like her singing, but from a technical perspective she was simply amazing.

    And her vocal coach said she had trouble with her mid-range. Trouble is relative.

    It sure is.  A million singers would give their eye-teeth for trouble like that.

    • #43
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