I have a story I tell people when I'm trying to give people a taste of what it was like, and Tony supplied the punchline.
One night in '66, Jose Feliciano was doing a late set at the hoot and quieted everybody down saying something to the effect of, "I want you to listen to this because I really mean it." And he floored us all by doing something that none of us had ever heard before. He did "The Star Spangled Banner" in a very Ray Charles soul style, the way he did when he messed with everybody's mind at the World Series a few years later.
OK, now everybody does it like that. Even Aretha. But in '66, in white suburban Orange County, just when Vietnam was blowing up in our faces and a number of us were afraid to go to the mailbox for fear of a letter from the government, nobody had ever done such a thing. It was unthinkable.
And he did mean it. He sang it from the heart, and everybody sat there, stunned. And Tony, who was sitting next to me, whispered, "Damn. It almost makes you want to enlist."
5 comments:
Rik, I tried to contact Jose both last time and this time but wasn't successful.
Gary was able to make contact with his agency two years ago, but he also wasn't able to get through to him personally. Would have been great to get him here.
It wasn't just his singing of the national anthem -- everything he sang seemed to be transformed into something greater than the original.
[Funny, my word verification this time is "amurican." I think given Jose's treatment of the anthem, that is a perfect verification.]
I loved him dueting with McEuen, fearlessly flatpicking his classical guitar, doing a Puerto Rican take on Doc Watson.
Quick Jose Story...Having not seen or spoken to Jose in 25 or so years,I threaded my way un-announced through his handlers to his dressing room. I walked into the room and just said "Hi Jose". He fired back "Gary... long time no see" Thats the Jose I'll always remember.
He never forgets a voice and he was always the first one to fire off a snappy one liner.
First, Rik, I'm so glad you were able to dredge up that punchline... not so easy for me. Truly, we're all enjoying (if not counting on) your incredible recall!
Second, to be sure you appreciate his wry SOH, not long thereafter I did receive said letter, and, like so many apolitical guitar players before me, I did enlist! To think... for all the years I've been explaining that enlisting was my version of dodging the draft, I could have simply said it was Feliciano's fault!
I got my letter about the same time, and made the same move. You were supposedly able to have some choice in the matter of what they did with you once you got in, IF you enlisted. And you could still enlist if you hadn't opened the letter.
So I took my unopened letter down to the recruiter, signed up, and flunked the physical.
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