It all started out as a way to break up the day for Mark Morasutti.
Forced to work from home and also helping out with a newborn and a toddler, the Guelph man decided to start posting a music performance each day on his YouTube channel called The Basement Sessions. He figured friends and family might enjoy it.
It started with a rendition of Ed Sheeran’s Perfect on April 20.
But the more he did it, the more people responded.
Old high school friends, acquaintances and strangers started watching and connecting with Morasutti.
On Thursday he achieved his goal of posting 100 songs, wrapping up the adventure with Closing Time by Semisonic.
In total: 100 songs in 87 days, over 5,000 YouTube views, a total of 6 hours, 51 minutes and 26 seconds of performing.
“I was working from home because of COVID and I’ve got a toddler and a newborn baby at home. I thought that I’ve got a little bit of extra time on my hands and wouldn’t it be cool if I could post some songs.”
Morasutti, who works in the insurance industry, used to play live music in bars back before life got in the way.
“Once I got to 35 or 40 people started asking ‘how long are you going to go for?’ and I thought it would be cool to get to 100."
He’s only missed two days and has posted twice on some days.
At some point he realized people were connecting.
“I started hearing from people from my past,” he said. “I was getting private messages on my phone or email from people I haven’t talked to in 10 years. That’s when it started getting a bit of traction.”
He took requests, he learned some new songs, he played a lot of his personal favourites. The songs often reflect what mood he was in.
“I think it was kind of giving people a little bit of a reprieve,” he said.
There were some special guests along the way, including his dad, his Uncle Tom and wife Stephanie, who performed a duet on song 99: We Are Young by Fun.
“My wife is a great singer but she doesn’t sing in front of people,” Morasutti said. “We picked a song that when we first dated we used to sing together privately, so I kind of pressured her into doing it with me.”
The end is a little bittersweet.
“It will be a little weird not doing it tomorrow,” Morasutti said. “But I am kind of ready for a bit of a break.”
Morasutti signed off Thursday’s performance with “thanks everybody. I love you all.”
