Anthem’s High Notes Can Cause Voices to Burst in Air

Robert Goulet forgot the words; Roseanne Barr should have. But Whitney Houston’s rousing Super Bowl version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” could turn the notoriously difficult national anthem into a Top-40 smash.

“The calls have come in from all over the country. Radio stations have called in, the public has called in. The switchboard here was jammed for two days,” said Arista Records President Clive Davis.

Houston’s version, riding the patriotic fervor of a nation at war, has been released to hundreds of radio stations around the country. It may also be released to the public as a single, with a portion of the profits going to charity, Davis said.

Houston’s much-praised rendition is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to warbling the anthem.

The difficult song with taxing high notes has proved more troublesome than triumphant for many who performed it in the past--a red, white and blue-faced bunch that includes Goulet, Barr, Johnny Paycheck and Willie Nelson, to name a few.

Little did Francis Scott Key know when he penned the poem 177 years ago that “The Star-Spangled Banner” would become a national anthem set to music few could sing. The tune that puts terror in stadium singers’ throats was adapted from an English melody.

Even the immortal Nat King Cole offered this advice after doing the anthem before a World Series: “If you do nothing else in your life, don’t ever sing the national anthem at a ballgame.”

Sadly, many ignored his advice.

* Goulet, singing before the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston title fight in 1965, got as far as “Oh, say can you see . . . “ before blanking out. He hummed the rest of the tune.

* Nelson treated the crowd at the 1980 Democratic National Convention to a special version of the anthem, deleting the “rockets’ red glare” and altering a few other spots. On the bright side, his bandanna looked perfect.

* Paycheck improvised this inspirational couplet before an Atlanta Falcons game: “Oh, say can you see, it’s cloudy at night. What so loudly we sang, as the daylight’s last cleaning.”

* Jefferson Airplane vocalist Marty Balin was booed off the field at Candlestick Park in 1984 after forgetting the words.

* And Barr . . . Well, President Bush summed up her screeching, crotch-grabbing July 25, 1990, version of the anthem before a San Diego Padres game: “Disgusting.”

Not everyone has botched the anthem: Jose Feliciano’s Latin-tinged version at the 1968 World Series became an instant classic. Huey Lewis and the News do a great a cappella version. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has received a great deal of praise for his solo anthem.