To blaze a trail / To be a trailblazer

Jessica:	Chris, I have a question for you. Would you say that people should take iconic works literally or do you think they are open to interpretation?
Chris:	Hmm… I know this is a trick question. Are you talking about the Bible?
Jessica:	No.
Chris:	The Constitution of the United States?
Jessica:	Actually, the national anthem!
Chris:	Oh! But... what is there to interpret? The anthem is the anthem, isn’t it?
Jessica:	I’m talking about musical interpretation! I bet you’re not surprised when you hear the anthem performed in a unique, modern style by a famous singer. This has not always been the case, though. Someone had to blaze a trail.
Chris:	Care to explain?
Jessica:	Well, before the 1960s, the anthem was generally performed by popular musicians of stage and screen, or talented members of the military, and always, always in a very traditional way. But then, in 1968, a Puerto Rican pop star named José Feliciano was asked to sing The Star Spangled Banner before one of the games of the World Series of baseball.
Chris:	Yeah, the St. Louis Cardinals played the Detroit Tigers! The Tigers won! It was a historic event!
Jessica:	It was also historic because of José Feliciano’s trailblazing performance. Picture it: a young guy wearing sunglasses, sitting on a stool, playing his acoustic guitar and singing a Latin jazz-infused version of the national anthem!
Chris:	People must have been puzzled.
Jessica:	Puzzled? Definitely! Some liked it, but many were outraged! Feliciano was even booed by some of the fans. Phones lit up with angry calls from around the country. People were taking off their shoes and throwing them at their television screens!
Chris:	Wow! Though I can understand why some felt it was disrespectful. It was 1968! The country was torn apart over America’s involvement in Vietnam. I bet some people perceived Feliciano's anthem as a protest.
Jessica:	But it wasn’t. Feliciano insisted it was the exact opposite. He said: "I did it to show my appreciation to America for what they had done for me. I love this country."
Chris:	I see… He wasn’t protesting or being disrespectful.
Jessica:	Not at all. He was just the first to try it, and that’s what threw people off.
Chris:	He really did blaze a trail!
Jessica:	Feliciano's improvisation on the anthem opened the door for lots of other people to play their own interpretation of the anthem.
Chris:	Yeah! Like Jimi Hendrix with his solo guitar performance of the national anthem at Woodstock in 1969.
Jessica:	Another trailblazing performance.
Chris:	There are so many great examples, with each artist bringing a new style. Marvin Gaye at the NBA All Star Game in 1983, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel...
Jessica:	Beyoncé. Lady Gaga. And, of course, Whitney Houston's iconic performance in 1991, at the height of the first Gulf War, complete with a flyover of four F-16 fighter jets.
Chris:	Nowadays we don’t see anything controversial about an original interpretation of our national anthem. In fact, we’ve come to expect them!
Jessica:	So, back to the question I asked you earlier – should we take iconic works literally or are we free to interpret them?
Chris:	I don’t know about all iconic works, that’s too philosophical for me. But I will say this about the anthem: If you’re a singer, go ahead and be bold, blaze a trail, but please, stay on key.

To blaze a trail / To be a trailblazer

The phrase blaze a trail conjures up images of a brave individual moving forward into unknown or even perilous territory and clearing the path for others to follow. The idiom is used to describe the actions of pioneers in every field of work or expression; from science to the arts. A trailblazer is the first person to do something or make a discovery, and enables or inspires other people to do the same.

As you might imagine, blazing a trail comes from a very common practice in hiking and forest management. However, contrary to our expectations of the word “blaze”, it has nothing to do with setting something on fire. Blazing actually refers to the action of leaving small marks on trees so that people can easily follow a trail through the forest. Traditionally, blazing involves cutting a small notch in the bark of a tree; that notch is a “blaze”. Therefore, many pioneers and explorers were literally trailblazers, but nowadays we use the term figuratively to talk about artists with bold new expressions, scientists who defy tradition, politicians to challenge the status quo, etc…

The expression most likely originated in the United States. The practice of blazing trees has been well known and documented for hundreds of years, but the earliest recorded usage of “blaze a trail” was in the Montana newspaper, The Helena Independent, in 1883. In that case the phrase was used literally. It is unclear how or when the idiom evolved into the figurative meaning we use today, but it’s accurate to say that someone, somewhere blazed the trail when they used it as a metaphor for the first time.

Example 1:

As the first woman elected mayor in her city’s history, she is blazing the trail for other local women to enter politics.

Example 2:

With his revolutionary ideas about the universe, Stephen Hawking is a trailblazer in the field of theoretical physics.

Example 3:

In places like Silicon Valley, people love to call themselves trailblazers. But with thousands of innovators competing to develop the next great technology that will change the world, only a few of them can realistically make that bold claim.