For the last several years, my wife Ann and I have attended the Steele Family holiday concert at MPR's Fitzgerald Theater. If you're not aware, they are considered Minnesota's first family of soul and gospel. Three brothers and two sisters (a third sister sometimes joins the concert) who have been singing together since they were little kids in Gary, Indiana, and their preacher father brought them to churches to perform.
As a Jew, the actual words of the Christmas songs aren't as meaningful to me as they are to many. But what I find so inspiring about the concert is the wonderful music the Steeles make and the great sense of family they convey. When we worry so much these days about all the problems facing modern families, it's nice to see all that love up on stage. They've been doing the concert for 24 years and their children are now old enough to carry the second act by themselves.
Ann and I have been Steele groupies for many years. We first heard them at the Fine Line Café in the 1980s. In fact, we celebrated my 40th birthday there and it was the first date for my sister-in-law Lisa and her future husband Jeff. We saw them in the musical "Gospel at Colonus" at the Guthrie and on Broadway in 1988.
The highlight in our long history of cheering for the Steeles took place on a muggy, hot July night in 1986, when the Steeles played at our wedding, blowing the roof off the rented country mansion where the ceremony took place and impressing the heck out of all our friends and relatives. I still can't believe we were able to hire them to play back then and I won't say how incredibly reasonable the price was. But they were just getting going, as we were, and so it was probably an ok deal for both sides.
Since then, the siblings have traveled the world, racking up a Grammy, an Academy Award nomination, cutting a series of solo albums, making national commercials, writing plays, appearing on "A Prairie Home Companion," composing music, leading choirs, raising their own families and much more.
But they always come together for their rocking acoustic Christmas concert at the Fitz. The last couple years we've taken our daughters, Evie, 10, and Sadie, 13. They had to admit that the concert was "cool." What seemed less clear was whether they were impressed that J.D. Steele, the oldest sibling, remembered us after all these years as we stood in line to have him and his siblings autograph a c.d. But that made our day. We immediately made plans to attend next year's concert.
Thanks to the Steele family for enriching our holiday season.