The Almost Sold-Out Four Chords and The Truth: The Fourth Floor Confessions Takes Place Tonight in Toronto
The Four Chords and The Truth: The Fourth Floor Confessions show will take place tonight, May 25, from 7 pm- 9 pm EST (doors 6 pm), and will be hosted by Nova Scotia-born, Toronto-based singer-songwriter, songwriter advocate, series founder and curator, Andrea England.
The show’s lineup will include performances from incredible award-winning Canadian songwriters such as CCMA and CMA Ontario Award-winning Robyn Ottolini, JUNO Award-nominated and Canadian Folk Music Award-winning Julian Taylor, and chart-topping singer-songwriter Liz Rodrigues, along with some special surprise guests. The series is also introducing the TikTok Seat, in which a songwriter breaking on TikTok’s entertainment platform is invited by England to join the round for one song.
Andrea started the series in 2018, and after 6 wonderful years, 21 unforgettable shows, and over 100+ award-winning songwriters at the Dakota Tavern, all shows of the Four Chords and The Truth series sold out in advance or at the door. Due to the sell-out success and demand for the previous dates, and this May 25th date, more shows are being planned for later this year and into 2024 at the series’ new venue in TD Music Hall.
We caught up with Andrea England to chat more about the event.
Hi Andrea, first off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m a singer-songwriter living in Toronto, originally from Nova Scotia. I’m an Americana/folk artist myself, but I write for and with other country and pop artists as well. I founded FCATT in 2015 to showcase the work of some of the writers I was working with at the time; it was meant to be just one show, but it really resonated with folks so…here we are 22 shows later!
You founded and also curated Four Chords and The Truth quarterly series. Tell us a bit about how these series came to be.
I’d played in a lot of songwriter rounds over the years, but none I’d been in featured pop or hip hop and country or blues writers on the same stage…and I was cowriting with writers and artists from multiple genres at the time and thought presenting them together would make a powerful statement: when we strip our songs down to their bare bones – and share them with one voice and one guitar or piano – we’re all really just folk singers…people with stories to tell.
On May 25, Four Chords and The Truth: The Fourth Floor Confessions will take place in Toronto. The lineup includes some incredible award-winning Canadian songwriters Robyn Ottolini, Julian Taylor, and Liz Rodrigues. How were these songwriters chosen?
Since it’s a multi-genre event, I look to book songwriters whose work I admire, but only one per genre. So once I book the country spot, for example, I move on to book someone outside that genre/ style, and so on, until I have a diverse group of great writers who, hopefully, will complement each other.
The series will also be introducing the TikTok Seat. Care to explain a bit about this?
I always give up my seat in the second round for an emerging songwriter. I think it’s important that we make room for the next generation, and there are a lot of great new writers out there who can hold their own on the circle, but maybe don’t have the catalogue yet to be considered an “established” artist, so this is a showcase opportunity for them. New artists are breaking on TikTok’s entertainment platform daily, so I approached them about working together to identify some potential candidates for the emerging songwriter spot, and the TikTok Seat was born!
I’m told there may be some surprises, can you let us at Canadian Beats in on at least one little secret?
Sure! Sitting in our first TikTok Seat is Toronto’s own Adrian Mitchell!
If anyone is looking for more information on how the event or how they could be featured in an upcoming series, what information can you give them?
Come to a show! If you want to get a sense of what it’s like to play it, come check it out in person first – and come say hi! If you’re not in Toronto, visit our website – there’s info there on our values, how to be considered for the show, etc….and follow us on TikTok, Instagram, etc. If you’re a great writer and you want to play FCATT, eventually our paths will cross!
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