Big Rivers: FAB5

FAB5

Listen and order now from Bandcamp. Available this spring from Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming platforms.

Big Rivers is the inaugural album on Lumiere Reserve imprint. Reserve is a special part of our label dedicated to bringing your dream album to life. Our first featured artist on the Reserve imprint is Alan Steel, who hails from the United Kingdom but now calls the United States home.

From Alan Steel…

There Goes the Sun...

Music, in many forms, has always been part of my life. As a chorister, playing the cello (badly), singing on the terraces at St. James's Park (really - that was music?), and in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But priorities shifted, and music became only a listening experience. Then, in 2021, Victoria Paterson and her team of (then unemployed) musicians brought music and hope to the Javits Vaccination Center, playing for everyone who was in that mandatory 15-minute wait after their Covid injection. Due to varying degrees of isolation, many people had not been in close contact with anyone for months. I saw tears, I saw dancing in the aisles, and I saw exhausted medical staff brighten as they listened. I saw at first hand the power music can have. And "Here Comes The Sun" would greet me when I came to listen. So when Victoria said we should make an album, and I thought, "I've never done that — why not," the Beatles song was an obvious inclusion.

The other songs I've recorded were a couple of familiar North Eastern England folk songs which my grandfather sang to me (Wor Nanny's a mazer, Lambton Worm), songs about Newcastle (Meet Me on the Corner by Lindisfarne, Coming Home by Busker and Big River by Jimmy Nail) and then a couple of my favorite ballads (Fields of Gold by Sting, and Anthem by Leonard Cohen). A real assortment of music, all with different vocal challenges, but they all have special meaning for me.

My voice is not what it was, but as the saying goes, "a man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." While there may be some regrets, there are still dreams to fulfill, and many years ago, it was a dream of mine to make a record.
Here it is, warts and all.

Alan was born in Newcastle and lived on either side of the River Tyne until he moved to London. As Busker says in his ode to the City, "cos he couldn't find a job." After working in the UK Civil Service, he moved to Chicago to work at the British Consulate, then to New York. In 1982, Alan left his trade development work and joined an American trade show management company called Little Brothers. He left that company 29 years later and took charge of the Javits Center, New York City's Convention Center. After working for 57 years, he retired in 2025 and now enjoys gardening, golf, genealogy, travel, and spending time with his wife, Cathy, and their family. This album is dedicated to his children, Vicky, Alex, Thomas, and William, his grandchildren, Isabel and Alice, and every member of his family, who have all supported him through thick and thin. It's also dedicated to his greatest joy and sorrow, Newcastle United.

Haway the Lads and Lasses!

Tracks

1. Big River – Jimmy Nail

2. Anthem – Leonard Cohen

3. Fields of Gold – Sting

4. Here Comes The Sun – George Harrison

5. Meet Me on the Corner – Rod Clements

6. Coming Home Newcastle – Ronnie Lambert

7. The Lambton Worm – C.M. Leumane

8. Wor Nanny’s a Mazer – Thomas Armstrong

Total Time: 57:32