Most recently they have been nominated to be in the final of the French Highway Awards 2020, and the winner will be announced on 12 February. Steve is a French singer/songwriter and producer, who played classical music and held the first prize for the Conservatory as an excellent pianist. Heather is American and was a professional dancer, and wonderful singer who showed rock and roll/ Country to Steve. Heather went on to do a masters in Musical Industry, leading them to do their first recording.

They are both driven by music and extremely passionate about what they do. They have written songs in both French and English and have released three wonderful albums to the market.

Steve composes and produces their work and they both write the music together. Their work ranges from covers completely remodelled with their own personalities, to their own original songs. Their first album which was produced in Nashville in 2007 was very successful and they went on to do their second album in France which came out in 2010. Following their second album they started doing big stages and festivals. They then went on to win the 2011 Euromasters in Germany for best European Country band. Due to being well known for their country music they were asked to represent France at the famous CMA Music Festival in Nashville, which they continued to do for three years.

Things seemed to be on the up for Steve&Heather when they ran in to a record label producer who was meant to expand the duo internationally and put out their third album entitled “Stories”. This crooked label, according to the duo, destroyed the pair as they conned them and stole their songs and copywrote them in Washington, further owing them €50,000. The legal proceedings were slow but luckily, they had copywritten their songs in France so they managed to get their songs back, however, the producer declared bankruptcy and could not pay the duo back, the domino effect of this was that duo became bankrupt and lost their home, forcing them to become homeless.

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Once they lost their home in 2017, they came to the Algarve to live with Heather’s father until they were able to move to the States. They then fell in love with Algarve because of its energy and started doing shows at hotels, pubs and restaurants, they worked for the Pestana group and the Autodrome resort and Penina Hotel and held open mics.

The pandemic has been very difficult for musicians and they need your support more than ever as their contracts have been cancelled. Steve has been able to get some smaller jobs as he has a truck so can help people move. Steve is also a graphic designer so if you need business cards, flyers or help designing a website, he can help.

They also have been doing live streams on Facebook once a month on a Sunday on their Facebook page Steve & Heather, so please give them a follow so you can keep up to date with this wonderful duo. Additionally, their third album “Stories” is out and the concept is 10 different stories relating to the United States about different people, things, places, history etc. If you want to have a listen to their latest album please check out them out on bandcamp https://steveandheather.bandcamp.com/releases.

In the future they hope to write a fourth album and they are also working on a cookbook. Heather has also been passionate about cooking. Heather’s family recipes were in the French country magazine back in 2006 called Dream West. This was very successful at the time and during Christmas she decided to create a cookbook “Mums special recipes” for her children as a Christmas present and from this they hope to write a different cookbook for all to enjoy!


Author

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes