by Rachael Rennie
Alan St Louis is a Nashua native who works as an engineer by day, and works to break world records at night. Currently Alan holds four world records for singing the national anthem. Alan’s story began in 1997 when he decided he wanted to sign the national anthem at Fenway park in Boston.
After years of sending in audition tapes in 2012 he decided to contact the organization and see what it would take to sing at Fenway, they told him he needed more name recognition before being considered.
Alan turned around and placed a phone call to the American Legion, he asked to sing at every one of their games that summer. Alan hadn’t previously considered setting records for singing until a patron commented on how rare it was to see someone perform the national anthem at 8 games in 9 days. After that Alan went on to contact and sing at many major colleges across New England.
Within the next year Alan would establish his first record of performing the national anthem 217 times. This success granted him the honor of singing at Fenway like he had dreamed, but that didn’t mean Alan was finished with his journey. In 2014 Alan set the records for the most national anthem performances in a day (10), and the most performances in three days (21). Last year Shootout for Soldiers was one of the 325 performances that contributed to Alan breaking his 2012 record.
This year Alan plans to break his record for performances of the national anthem yet again. Over the next 144 days, Alan already has 135 events planned, including a few performances for September 11h. This number also does not include the 25 times he will be performing for Shootout for Soldiers. At another event he plans on singing the national anthem from a hot air balloon to create a new record “High Altitude National Anthem”. This summer’s events also include Pawtucket Pawsocks games, Manchester Fisher Cats, and even the New Hampshire Speedway.
Alan first became involved with Shootout for Soldiers last summer after meeting Boston coordinator Mike Sullivan. Sullivan approached Alan about performing at the event, then Sullivan proposed Alan sing 24 times in 24 hours. “I thought he was crazy to be honest, but later in the summer when Janine did it, I knew I had to beat it somehow this summer.”
Alan is back to beat Janine’s record from last year by singing the national anthem 25 times this year at UMass Lowell, a venue he has performed at quite a few times in his career.
When asked what was next for Alan, he had a few responses:
“This year I hope to break last year’s record, by performing for the 365th time in a year this summer at Fenway Park”
And now that he’s accomplished his goal of singing at Fenway, Alan already has his eyes on a bigger stage;
“Now that I’ve sang at Fenway my next goal is a Patriots game at Gillette”
