NEW YORK – When Suzyn Waldman performed the national anthem prior to the Yankees’ home opener on July 31, keeping a promise once made to Gerrit Cole, the longtime radio broadcaster received many requests for a recorded version.
She heard more when that performance was replayed prior to Game 3 of the American League Division Series at Petco Park, the Yankees’ first “home” game against the Rays. Fans can now add a new version of Waldman’s rendition to their digital library, with proceeds to benefit City Meals on Wheels in The Bronx.
“A lot of people loved it for a lot of reasons, because it’s like an old-fashioned anthem,” Waldman said. “A lot of people were really moved, and I had a lot of people telling me, ‘You should record that, people would buy it.’ I was getting it all summer: ‘When are you going to sing again?’”
Waldman’s initial performance this season came as the result of a conversation with Cole in the visitors' clubhouse at Yankee Stadium about two years ago, when she told the then-Astros right-hander, “When you finally get here, you’re going to make a great Yankee.”
“If I do,” Cole replied, “you have to sing the national anthem on Opening Day.”
Cole remembered the conversation and challenged Waldman at his introductory news conference in December: “Don’t you forget, you promised me!”
Waldman said on Tuesday that as she performed prior to that Yankees-Red Sox tilt, she focused on a mural of the late George M. Steinbrenner III beyond the right-field wall.
“It was great -- like singing into a nightclub microphone,” Waldman said. “I was in the broadcast booth and there was no feedback. I could hear everything, and I looked out there – the first thing you see out there as you look out there is George. George would have loved that.”
For a follow-up effort, she collaborated with composer Doug Maxwell of New York-based Media Right Productions, recording the vocals on her home computer before sending the audio file off for mixing.
The result is impressive; a trained performer who spent many years as a musical theatre actress and singer, Waldman sounds as though she was backed by a full orchestra -- a feat that the pandemic would have made impossible without the magic of digital production.
“I found out that you can make recordings with orchestras without ever leaving your house,” Waldman said. “I was in my house with an app on my computer and a microphone, and I said, ‘I want brass here, I want violins here.’ He wrote it and set down tracks around my performance.”
Waldman’s rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner is 99 cents and available from the iTunes store, Apple Music, Spotify and other popular music sites. She selected City Meals on Wheels in the hopes of assisting needy residents in Yankee Stadium’s backyard, a neighborhood that has been deeply affected during the pandemic.
“I don’t know how much money it will bring in,” Waldman said. “But even if it’s one dollar, that’s one dollar that can help feed people.”