40 years ago, 23 year old Jose Feliciano sat before a public address microphone at Tiger Stadium. Detroit was playing in the World Series and Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell was assigned the job of selecting the talent to render The National Anthem. Jose followed Marvin Gaye, who sang a straight version after the Tigers directed Harwell to admonish the Motown superstar to keep things traditional. Today, Jose’s rendition sounds tame in comparison to the diverse interpretations we hear at almost every sporting event. But in the day it generated a firestorm of controversy. Here’s NPR’s excellent remembrance of how it happened. (Special thanks to Keenerfan Jim Feliciano for the picture and recording of Jose’s performance at Michigan and Trumbull.)

In March of 1971, we were still in Vietnam.?Radio Hanoi sought to tweak US public opinion by having Hanoi Hannah play The Star Spangled Banner as performed by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Their hope of angering Amrerica backfired and Jimi’s version became a hit on?underground radio stations across the country including WKNR-FM. Down I-94 in Ann Arbor, WPAG-FM had just launched a nighttime progressive rock format to try and attract listeners to the stations struggling 3,000 watt monaural signal. The format itself was a bit of a stretch for conservative owner Ted Baughn and Program Director Charlie Bross thought he was definitely pushing the edge of the envelope when authorized a new sign-off, featuring the Hendrix version of the National Anthem.