Morning Joe Celebrates Woodstock Anniversary With Wild Story About How Jimi Hendrix’s Star-Spangled Banner Was Initially Received

MSNBC’s Morning Joe spent some time on Thursday to celebrate the 55th anniversary of Woodstock, and a story from their guest took a surprisingly patriotic turn.

Henry Diltz was officially commissioned to photograph the event in 1969, putting him on stage with the ’60s most popular musical acts including Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Jimi Hendrix.

Diltz told the Morning Joe co-hosts about the overwhelmingly positive feeling of the festival in Bethel, New York, where about 450,000 people gathered in the midst of the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the social upheaval of 1968 to celebrate “peace and love and music.”

But one particular moment that stood out to Diltz was Hendrix’s iconic rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner”:

When he played the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it was at first — I mean, I was like, ten yards away from him photographing him — and at first, it was kind of surprising. Like, wait a minute — we were against the government and against the war, and it seemed like, “What’s he playing — that’s their song, not our song.” And then, but then you thought, well, wait a minute, he’s reclaiming it for us. And it was such a final act of of unity that was so beautiful on his part.

Watch the video above via MSNBC.

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