Alan St. Louis’ dream is to sing the national anthem for the Boston Red Sox. To get there, he’s decided to take the long road – a road that recently stopped in Cambridge.
Last July, St. Louis embarked on a quest to set the world record for most national anthems sung in a 12-month period. For his 57th performance, the Nashua, N.H. native belted out the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of Harvard women’s basketball’s matchup with Brown on Jan. 29.
St. Louis returned to the Soldiers Field complex this Friday and Saturday to open Harvard women's hockey's games against Princeton and Quinnipiac.
No one officially holds the record for most renditions, and St. Louis believes he may have already set it with 60 as of Jan. 31, but he plans to continue scheduling as many performances as feasibly possible. His Saturday performance at Bright Hockey Center was one of three St. Louis had on the day, but that’s nothing new. At the beginning of the journey back in July, St. Louis sang four to five times a day at American Legion baseball tournaments to jumpstart his campaign.When St. Louis puts the microphone to his mouth, he attempts to sing the song as it was intended.
“I don’t try to embellish it. That’s part of my motivation,” St. Louis said. “I’m a proud American, and I’m not afraid to say it. Too many people are trying to over-sing it or over-embellish it.”
He’s perfected the tune after many years of experience. In fact, St. Louis has been singing national anthems for roughly 20 years and has been in a barber shop quartet for 35.
St. Louis’ biggest venue thus far was a New England Revolution match at Gillette Stadium in front of 14,000 onlookers.
“The stadium was rocking,” St. Louis said. “I can only imagine what it would be like for a full stadium.”
St. Louis said his dream would be to sing for a full crowd before a New England Patriots or Boston Red Sox game. Recently, he’s been talking to the Red Sox to see if he could sing his 100th performance at Fenway Park to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the historic ballpark.
