by Mark Anthony Neal
There’s not been much to watch during this year’s NBA Finals, as Tim Duncan and the lunch-pail ethos that defines his team’s style of play has made for dreadful entertainment. The one breakthrough moment occurred as Ben Harper freaked the “Star Spangled Banner” on his slide guitar prior to Game 3. In another era, Harper’s performance might have elicited some derision (though I don’t know if Bill O’Reilly has weighed in yet), but at a moment when many Americans are feeling dislocated and disaffected, Harper’s angular rendition spoke to the vertigo of the moment.
Of course, Harper was just tapping into a larger tradition of artists who have performed unique versions of the “Star-Spangled Banner” before major sporting events. Perhaps the most well known was Jose Feliciano’s version, performed at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium prior to a 1968 World Series game between the Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals. Performed at the height of anti-Vietnam protests, the version by the Puerto Rican-born Feliciano resonated among those pushing for a new version of American democracy and raised the ire of those who thought his highly idiosyncratic version was unpatriotic.
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