Soul star John Legend will sing patriotic hymn "America the Beautiful" at the Super Bowl, generally the most-watched event of the year on US television, the National Football League said.
The Grammy-winning singer, who topped the charts with his 2013 piano ballad "All of Me," will perform the hymn before kickoff at the American football championship game to be held February 1 in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.
Last year, the Super Bowl invited 26 children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- where a gunman weeks earlier had killed an equal number of children and teachers -- to perform "America the Beautiful" alongside singer Jennifer Hudson.
The Broadway actress Idina Menzel will also be at the Super Bowl to sing the national anthem, the NFL and network NBC said.
Menzel is a Broadway, film and television star known for her powerful singing who recently appeared in hit Disney film "Frozen."
Her latest Broadway musical, "If/Then," will go dark for one week to accommodate her Super Bowl trip, the producer said. "If/Then" closes in March after one year on Broadway.
The NFL previously announced that pop superstar Katy Perry would perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Perry recently said that she would be joined on stage by rock singer and songwriter Lenny Kravitz.
The Super Bowl, which last year was watched by the equivalent of one-third of the US population, is a highly sought venue for both performers and advertisers, who run unique commercials on television during breaks from the game.
Source: AFP