Performances and adaptations of The Star-Spangled Banner

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In the course of the adoption of The Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem of the United States, a variety of people have either sung or performed the anthem using a variety of instruments and methods. Some of these methods include using only one instrument, such as a guitar or trumpet. Other methods have included singing the anthem using different vocal ranges or even changing some of the words to show support for a home team or for an event. However, veterans groups have spoken out on occasion about these recordings, mainly calling them disrepectful to the country and to the anthem.

One of the most controversial renditions of the anthem was Jimi Hendrix's solo guitar performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival. Hendrix played the anthem with a number of distorted regressions, to great acclaim from the audience. The performance still has a number of detractors. It was voted 52nd on the list of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time by readers of Guitar World Magazine. Hendrix also recorded a studio version of The Star-Spangled Banner some time before Woodstock festival. That version features numerous guitar tracks played through octave shifting effects. The resulting sound is somewhat unique. The studio version is available on Rainbow Bridge album and Cornerstones collection.

During their 1977 tour of America, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page would play the Star-Spangled Banner during his guitar solo.

Another famous rendition of the anthem was that of Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Gaye's highly soul-flavored performance also received much acclaim from the crowd.

Mariah Carey's performance of the anthem at the Super Bowl XXXVI is often considered to be one of the greatest. Carey also hit the highest note that has ever been reached by a singer performing the anthem^{[citation needed]}.

The song was also recorded by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones on their 1991 album Flight of the Cosmic Hippo.

"The Star Spangled Banner" became a charity single recorded by R&B singer Whitney Houston and produced by Narada Michael Walden to raise funds for soldiers and families of those involved in the Persian Gulf War. Houston performed "The Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV in 1991, using a pre-recorded version of the song. Her recording was released as a single in the U.S. on February 12, 1991 and as the Gulf War was drawing to a close, and it peaked at number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100. Its B-side was "America the Beautiful", and it was not released elsewhere. The single's video comprises footage from the recording of Houston's performance at the Super Bowl in 1991. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Arista Records arranged a re-release of Houston's version of "The Star Spangled Banner", with all profits going towards the firefighters and victims of the attacks. It peaked at number six on the Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA.

Thrash-metal band Exodus recorded an anti-America song called "Scar Spangled Banner". It can be found on the album Tempo of the Damned.

Sufjan Stevens has covered the song live adding in a new, anti-war verse:

And the flag marked with blood/with the blood of our hands/And our hands marked with death/with the blood of a man/And a man on the cross, and the cross on our hearts/Has it done nothing more/than to drive us apart? [1]

Roseanne Barr was once asked to sing it at a baseball game. As her voice was not well liked by the audience, because either she has little singing ability or because she purposefully botched the performance, the large crowd heckled her and threw objects onto the field in her direction in disgust. She has not been asked to sing again at a baseball game since.