As one blogger remembered the performance decades later:
I can remember watching Marvin walk by me out of the entrance tunnel onto the court. Being 15, I certainly was aware that he was a famous singer and I had heard “Sexual Healing” (not thinking much of the song). At the time, I didn’t and couldn’t appreciate his musical mastery.
After he walked on the court and as he prepared to sing, all of a sudden, time got really really slow. And now, so many years after the fact, I can describe in precise detail what actually transpired.
“Surrealism is a movement stating that the liberation of our mind…can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the ´unconscious mind´ to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately ‘truer’ than, everyday reality.” Wikipedia
As Marvin stood at center court, a syncopated beat machine was turned on. For several minutes, all I could hear was that funky beat.
Suddenly, loud shrieks began to emanate from the rafters. Marvin typically got this type of response when he walked onstage. Now however, the noise sounded like primal screams of the doomed as they descended into hell. I laughed uncontrollably out of sheer nervousness. What was going on (pun intended) I wondered?
He still hadn’t started the song.
Then he started to sing… and he sang very slowly, drawing out every syllable of every word. Marvin took a full minute to sing the first line of the Anthem.
As Marvin was delivering that very first line, I felt like I was struck by lightning. I knew with certainty that I was witnessing something very special—a watershed cultural event that would be talked about many decades into the future.
Between the second and third lines of the Anthem, our entire section arose en masse and began clapping to the beat which we continued to do for the rest of the song. For what seemed like hours, we weren’t in the Fabulous Forum…we were in the pews of Marvin’s church…a church none of us white suburbanites would likely ever visit in person. Through the most unlikely of musical vehicles, Marvin gave us the essence of Soul, personal and collective.
As I remember this event, I think of the emotion expressed by one of Ralph Ellison’s characters:
“He watched the wheel whirling past the numbers and experienced a burst of exaltation: This is God! This is the really truly God! He said it aloud, “This is God!” He said it with such absolute conviction that he feared he would fall fainting into the footlights.”– King of the Bingo Game
Did others see what I saw and feel what I felt? I knew others dug the Anthem and were groovin’ to it. But did they participate in the groove or just passively partake? Were they tripping like me? Did they trip at all? I didn’t know, couldn’t know.
Finally, Marvin delivered us safely back to our seats…just in time for the game to begin. The applause shook the building.
The rest of the game was a mere afterthought. I remember Kareem blocking Larry Bird and Dr J. on (not quite) consecutive trips down the court and I also recall a terrific gymnastics halftime show. I also distinctly remember not having the vocabulary or maturity to communicate my experience to anyone until now.
Whitney Houston, Super Bowl XXV
It was what turned a star into a superstar: Whitney Houston’s mesmerizing rendition of the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl. Houston’s powerful “Star Spangled Banner” performance came at a poignant, patriotic time – the U.S. had just entered the 1991 Gulf War .
Rickey Minor, who was Houston’s musical director at the time, said that in a crowd that large and loud, it was impossible for Houston to hear herself, so they pre-recorded the performance. Though she did sing, it was her pre-recorded voice that the audience heard.
Minor and Houston also changed the national anthem to ensure a better performance.
On Election Day 1990, when Whitney Houston was announced as the performer of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XXV, Houston knew instantly how she wanted to interpret the tune there—with jazz chords and soulful gospel rhythms. So, Rickey Minor, her longtime musical director, suggested taking the song out of standard, waltz tempo—three quarters time—and add an extra beat per measure, which would allow Houston to open up her lungs and ‘breathe’.
“The original version is in 3/4 time, which is more like a waltz,” Minor explained. “What we tried to do was to put it in 4/4 meter… We wanted to give her a chance to phrase it in such a way that she would be able to take her time and really express the meaning.”
Minor recalled that she truly embraced the song. But not everybody agreed. Some (NFL) officials feared the rendition was too flamboyant for wartime. Minor told USA Today that “They thought the harmonies were too different, that it was sacrilegious.” Bob Best, the Super Bowl’s pregame show producer since the early 1980s, added that “Their hang-up was that it wasn’t easy to sing to. I disagreed wholeheartedly.” Four days before the game, NFL officials ordered Best to phone Houston’s father, John, and ask if she would record another version. The answer was no. Best said that “I held that phone so far away from my ear.” Yet, when Houston stepped onto the field, Minor was filled with anxiety: “I thought, ‘What if everybody boos?'”
Minor was nervous that the altered anthem wouldn’t be well received, but that was far from what happened: Houston’s performance electrified the stadium and soon after, popular demand prompted Houston’s record label to release a single that hit the top 20 on the Billboard charts. The single peaked at #6 on the US Hot 100, and was certified platinum by the RIAA. It also surprisingly peaked at #5 on the Canadian Singles Chart. This made Houston the first musical act to take the national anthem Top 10 in the US, and have it certified platinum.
“I think it might well be the best Super Bowl performance of all time, ” said Billboard Magazine editor Danyel Smith. “It may well be, with the exception of her version of Dolly Parton’s, ‘I Will Always Love You,’ the most remembered thing about her. I think our grandkids will look at the video for ‘I Will Always Love You’ and they will look at the video of Whitney Houston singing at Super Bowl twenty-five.”