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Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Bangled Banner" - Woodstock Live


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I am not all that old , But I think it was first played at Woodstock it was considered by many to be disrespectful. even though it was intended to show that long hair or what ever we are all Americans.

But That is just my opinion as a young observer

I am not saying it was disrespectful, but I do remember how many people were shocked by the reports over the news.

Edited by AlamoShooter
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I agree with Duane. The amazing thing is that only about 25-35 thousand people were present for the Hendrix rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. It was on Monday morning and most of the bands had delayed starts because of the rain. The Hendrix show had originaly been planned as the grand finale on sunday evening. Most rock stars would not have even gone on stage at that point. AS for being disrespectful, the same thing was said about Jose Felkiciano's televised version at the World Series, I belive also in 1969.

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When I was a teen, maybe late 70's, early 80's I remember asking my mom why she didn't go to Woodstock. She said she didn't hear about it till after it was over and it didn't sound like fun.

She was 27 in 69.

An interesting side note since you have Lake Dallas as your location. We lived near by & late in 1969 a smaller version of Woodstock was held on the SE side of Lake Dallas/Louisville lake the entire shore line was coved similar to the photos of Woodstock. My older brother went andwas gone two days or so, I remember riding along in the family car looking for him Thinks the Idea that we could find him would was crazy. My Dad found him like he had some kind of GPS on him. I thought my Dad was real crazy when he told my Mom that he was going to let my brother stay another day.

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I was near the end of Army Basic Training in the fall of 1970 and we had a half-day pass on Sunday to go to the PX, movies, etc. Woodstock was playing and the theater was packed.

Before every movie, the Star Spangled Banner played and everyone in the audience stood and sang along - some willingly, some because they had to. You have to remember that most of the people there were draftees and were expecting to go to Vietnam within the next few months.

Well, I have to tell you that when Hendrix started playing that, everyone stood. There were no cat calls, no hoots or hollers, and many men around me had tears in their eyes. It is something I will never forget.

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Does she wish now that she'd gone, since (from all accounts) it was pretty incredible, and has since become such an important part of American rock music cultural history?

Nah. My ma is the type that believes there was only one singer that would garner the effort of seeing live. That would be The King. I grew up with Elvis on the console and of course every time an Elvis movie was on we were watching. The best part would be when my 100% tone deaf mother would be cleaning the house and singing along. My hearing has never really recovered...

My old man was a small town cop in 69. To him it was a stinkin hippie fest.

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An interesting side note since you have Lake Dallas as your location. We lived near by & late in 1969 a smaller version of Woodstock was held on the SE side of Lake Dallas/Louisville lake the entire shore line was coved similar to the photos of Woodstock. My older brother went andwas gone two days or so, I remember riding along in the family car looking for him Thinks the Idea that we could find him would was crazy. My Dad found him like he had some kind of GPS on him. I thought my Dad was real crazy when he told my Mom that he was going to let my brother stay another day.

Too cool! My neighbor is about sixty and grew up in the same house he lives in. I'll ask him if he remembers it.

From talking to him I think this area was really rural in those days. I'm a big sucker for local history stories. He has a 57 Chevy in his garage that was his first car. Says it was the local drag racing champ in the late sixties early seventies. He's doing a super slow frame off rebuild so I go over and listen to the stories when he's in the garage working on it.

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An interesting side note since you have Lake Dallas as your location. We lived near by & late in 1969 a smaller version of Woodstock was held on the SE side of Lake Dallas/Louisville lake the entire shore line was coved similar to the photos of Woodstock. My older brother went andwas gone two days or so, I remember riding along in the family car looking for him Thinks the Idea that we could find him would was crazy. My Dad found him like he had some kind of GPS on him. I thought my Dad was real crazy when he told my Mom that he was going to let my brother stay another day.

Too cool! My neighbor is about sixty and grew up in the same house he lives in. I'll ask him if he remembers it.

From talking to him I think this area was really rural in those days. I'm a big sucker for local history stories. He has a 57 Chevy in his garage that was his first car. Says it was the local drag racing champ in the late sixties early seventies. He's doing a super slow frame off rebuild so I go over and listen to the stories when he's in the garage working on it.

Is his last name Blasdale? :mellow: Do NOT! bring up my name - that was a diffrent life time

Edited by AlamoShooter
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Being from that era I can say that Woodstock was a festival, the music was important but the experience was the thing. Most people there didn't have a clue who would be playing, it didn't matter much it was all good.

The movie as it was released was awesome. It only played at theaters that where big enough for the big twin screens and they brought in a killer audio system (at least for the time it was loud) so you felt like you where there. The later releases suck in comparison.

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This is a cool thread. I remember seeing Jimi on DIck Cavett show the night after he played. Dick Cavett asked Jimi if he thought he was disrespectful like some critics had said. "no , man, I thought it was beautiful". To me, it is the best rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. In the middle there is about 10 bars of Taps, which I thought was just incredible. A beautiful memory to a horrible time. A lot of you don't know what the draft was. Check it out.

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That summer I was 17, and doint the local music thing myself. On Sunday, the 17th of August, we had to go tear down equipment from a gig the night before at a place called the Fiesta. There was this little storm in the Gulf of Mexico called "Camille." The owner said it was allright if we left the gear there, but we deicided to pack it up. What a lucky decision that was. We were without power for about three weeks.

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Actually it was split screen but it only worked well at theaters that had the old huge screens. When I've seen the movie on tv they jump from one screen to the other most of the time. Haven't looked at the dvd yet.

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Just FYI, you can get a double disc of Jimi's complete Woodstock set at Wal-Mart for $10. My nephew is 12, and lives to play guitar. I got him that and a Led Zeppelin greatest hits album for Christmas last year and told him that if he didn't like both he was no longer allowed to play the guitar.

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It was split screen, I don't know if they used two projectors, thinking back I believe the deal was that it needed to old style wide theater screen to be able to get the full split screen affect without chopping off parts of the film. I'm talking about the original documentary film that I saw in 1970. It really had a profound effect on me but it has been a few years ago. The sound system was the closest to live music I experienced.

About half way thru this story they mention the split screen. USA Today story on Woodstock

Hard to pick a favorite performance but I never get tired of Ten years After "Going Home" Alvin Lee is a fantastic guitar wizard who somehow never got the credit he deserves.

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