We are wrapping up day 6 of our anniversary in Toronto, Canada with songwriter Steve Sloane. Actually I think he put this together somewhere on the road and I can’t thank him enough for taking the time to do that. I’m very honored to have this particular song playing on this festival, because Let All In by Steve Sloane is my favorite song of the year. I just love how the emotion builds throughout the song. It’s so fragile, humane, powerful and it resonates within me on a deep level. It can be so damn hard and scary to feel something else. Not that I’ve experienced such a horrible trauma as being assaulted, forcibly confined in a stolen car, and being held at gunpoint. It happened to Steve in 2017 and his new album Near Death contains the songs that released him from the grip of near death. An exceptionally powerful album and I fully recommend listening to the whole remarkable record. Here’s Steve Sloane redoing Let All In for our anniversary week. Make sure to also listen to the album version with beautiful harmonies from Julie Arsenault and check out this live video of three other songs from this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBlC7j4Ewjc

Steve Sloane at Facebook
Steve Sloane at Bandcamp

One Chord to Another hits 18 years on the 17th of September and celebrates the long road with an online birthday party. During the anniversary week (14 – 22 of September) you will see unique live performances from the artists that shaped these 18 years of the blog. Follow the action on this blog and social media and feel free to comment if you so wish.

Our anniversary celebration carries on in the Bay Area. I’ve been a big fan of San Francisco-based folk rock band China led by songwriter Michael James Tapscott since their first EPs. Their magnificent new album And Then Nothing Happened came out in February on Royal Oakie and China’s contribution to this online festival is a beautiful outdoor performance of album cut Crossing the Ohio. If you want to hear more of their exceptional songwriting and folk rock songs rooted in the West Coast, check out the whole discography over at bandcamp and/or those other music videos. Here’s the live version of Crossing the Ohio directed by Yasamine June.

China at Facebook
China at Bandcamp
Marnie (music video from 2019 album And the Nothing Happened)
Everyone Thinks I’m a Loser (music video from 2016 album Pool of Tears)
Royal Oakie Records Website

One Chord to Another hits 18 years on the 17th of September and celebrates the long road with an online birthday party. During the anniversary week (14 – 22 of September) you will see unique live performances from the artists that shaped these 18 years of the blog. Follow the action on this blog and social media and feel free to comment if you so wish.

Next we meet up with one of my favorite Finnish songwriters Petri Vähäsarja who has released wonderful songs both with the band Suomen Zorro and as a solo artist. I would especially recommend his two solo records on Helmi Levyt. I love both wholeheartedly. His song for our anniversary week is a new one called Särkänniemen delfiinit. The video might be bit on the dark & blurry side, but it actually fits quite perfectly to this beautifully haunting and poignant song. And oh my what a song it is once again. Absolutely powerful in all its fragility.

Vähäsarja at Facebook
Lähden vuorille music video

One Chord to Another hits 18 years on the 17th of September and celebrates the long road with an online birthday party. During the anniversary week (14 – 22 of September) you will see unique live performances from the artists that shaped these 18 years of the blog. Follow the action on this blog and social media and feel free to comment if you so wish.