No longer recording with Motown, Gaye singed with CBS Records) in 1982 and collaborated with Gordon Banks on the track “Sexual Healing” which trumpeted Gaye’s return to the top of the R&B and pop charts and earn the veteran soul singer his first Grammy Awards in 1983. It was in the context Gaye’s return to the limelight that he was asked to perform the National Anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game at the Los Angeles Forum.
Like the “Stubborn Kind of Fella” that Gaye had embodied for much of his life, Gaye came strolling on court to a drum beat that Banks had programmed only the day before. Reminiscent of the backbeat that was featured on “Sexual Healing” Gaye’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” elicited celebratory catcalls, and halfway through the song the audience of over 17,000 were tapping their feet and clapping their hands in affirmation.It could have been any ole Sunday at any church in Black America, but instead it was on national television, moments before the tip-off of the yearly showcase for a sport that was coming into mainstream as Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving, and soon Michael Jordan would become household names.
Often thought of as “sacred” anthem of American patriotism, Francis Scott Key’s composition is rarely performed beyond the parameters intended by the composer. The song, which was granted national anthem status in 1931, has for more than a century has been emblematic of the American ideal of citizenship and belonging. Alternatively, for those who are denied full citizenship and any sense of belonging, the “The Star-Spangled Banner” is little more soundtrack of American exclusion and imperialism. As such when artists perform distinctly personal versions of the song it often represents both a sense of ownership and protest. Such was the case when guitarist Jose Feliciano performed a “controversial” rendition of the song prior to Game 5 of the 1968 World Series game at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. Gaye ironically performed a standard version of the anthem before Game 4.
No doubt memories of Feliciano’s performance (Motown was based in Detroit in the late 1960s) resonated with Gaye when he stepped on to center court at the Los Angeles Forum that day. Arguably, Gaye’s performance that day — one of his last appearances on national television before his murder a year later — not only put an exclamation on two generations of Black social protest in music, but offered a glimpse into a future in which, the technological innovations of Black music producers would come to dominate the arena of American Pop music. As such Gaye’s performance also marked the beginnings of the National Basketball Association’s now forty-year embrace of Black popular culture.