Local Minnesota songwriterAcoustic fingerstyle guitarAlways for a good cause

Long before David Olson picked up a guitar, music was carrying his family through the unthinkable. Six generations on, he turns those stories into soulful acoustic music: familiar songs and originals rooted in real lives. Come listen, and meet the unsung heroes behind the songs.

A 40-foot industrial shelf full of heavy machinery and motors fell on David when he was four. With collapsed lungs, he lost his voice and had only a short window of time to survive. Others were there when he needed it most. Now he uses his voice to bring awareness and help others, including the helicopter crew that saved his life. Read the story →

Watch David Olson perform Love Broke Through
Hear David play → Invite David to play →

Performances are free and every dollar raised goes directly to charity. It's where music becomes hope. Explore the causes →

Album cover: a red flame-top acoustic guitar lying on dark stage floorboards under a single warm spotlight
David Olson

Six Strings.One Remarkable Story.

100%funinspiringreal storiesheartfamilyhopeto charityfun
MissionOne
GenerationsSix
To charity100%
Performance fee$0
Six generations of musicOrdinary people. Extraordinary storiesSongs for the stories that deserve to be heardTurning hard chapters into hopeThe music is free. The mission is bigger.
Side A · The Story · 1866 to now

From Immigrant Girl to Family Legacy.

Six generations, told from David's side of the table. In Swedish, the line that runs through a story and holds it together has a name: den röda tråden, the red thread. In this family, the thread is the music. Follow it down the page.

Emma as a young girl
Emma as a girl playing the family piano
A family portrait from an Iowa studio
Emma receiving a kiss from a young boy outside the house
Emma playing the accordion with her family
Emma standing among bare trees
Emma in a long dress and feathered hat, standing in the snow
Emma in a white blouse and long skirt, holding a handbag
Emma standing with her son Joe, both in hats
Portrait of Emma in a polka-dot blouse
Emma in the late 1940s
Olof and Emma Olson with grandchildren, 1935
Emma in her later years, seated in the garden
05 / 13
A1 My great-great-grandma

Emma

1866 – 1947

A girl from Sweden who came to America, built a life from almost nothing, and kept the music alive through all of it.

Voice Read Emma's story →
Joe as a toddler with his brothers Gerhard and David
Joe as a boy
Young Joe in a suit standing with his mother, Emma
Joe and Dave Olson carrying a pitchfork of pelts on the farm, 1915
Joe Olson as a young man in a fedora and suit
Joe as a young man in a white suit
Joe with a horse
Joe and his bride on their wedding day
Joe with his wife and two children
Joe and his wife with two of their children on the farm
Joe with two young boys
Joe Olson on the farm in overalls and a cap
Joe Olson at age 63
Joe playing fiddle with the band
Joe playing his violin
Joe Olson and his family
15 / 16
A2 My great-grandpa

Joe

1902 – 1981

A farm boy in the truest sense, who played fiddle and guitar after the work was done and never let the music disappear.

Fiddle, guitar Read Joe's story →
Emma holding baby Milton beside a field
A mother reading a book to her children on the farm, with the family dog
Milton with family, gathered around an elderly grandmother
Milton Olson at 15 years old
Milton as a young man with his guitar, signed Milt Olson
Milton playing guitar at a family jam, with a fiddler and a young woman at the piano
Milton and Lee standing in the barn beside the cows
Milton in his Navy uniform outside a stone barracks
Milton in his US Navy dress blues
Milton Olson, US Navy, Great Lakes, 1950s
Milton in his Navy work uniform on deck
Milton's Navy destroyer, hull number 725, at sea
A Navy destroyer, hull number 723, under way at sea
The big guns firing from Milton's Navy ship
Waves breaking over the bow of Navy ship 725
Milton in his Navy uniform with his sweetheart
Milt admiring the wiring in this house, a photo album page
Milton and his family on graduation day
Milton playing guitar while a toddler listens
Milton and family on the couch with two grandchildren, 1970s
Joe, Milo, Milton and Olson playing music together, 1970s
Milton Olson, the inventor, with his homemade fan hat
Milton and the Olson and Sons Electric crew
The Olson and Son's Electric storefront
Milton Edward Olson with his radio-controlled model airplane
Milton and Milo Olson playing at the Riverfest Talent Show, Monticello, 2005
Milton playing a blue electric guitar in his later years
Milton and a friend in Santa hats playing guitar and mandolin at a Christmas show
Milton Olson in his later years, in a gray suit
Milton in his last days, with family playing guitar and singing at his bedside
05 / 30
A3 My grandpa

Milton

1930 – 2010

Quiet, steady, and gifted with anything electrical. He never needed many words; the guitar said them.

Guitar, mandolin Read Milton's story →
Warren Olson as a young boy, school portrait
Warren Olson's high school portrait
Warren as a teenager in a matching striped sweater, 1970s
Warren and his bride on their wedding day
Warren and four men in 1970s suits, lined up on the lawn
Warren in a white cowboy hat and western shirt, playing electric bass at a microphone
A family jam in the kitchen with guitars and a banjo
Warren with his father Milton holding the Monticello Chamber award for Fifty Years of Business, Olson & Son's Electric
06 / 08
A4 My dad

Warren

1954 –

A blue-collar electrician who traded his father's country songs for rock 'n' roll as a teenager, and never left the old ones behind.

Guitar, harmonica, songwriting Read Warren's story →
David with his grandpa Milton on his graduation day
David singing on stage under spotlights, playing his red Taylor
02 / 02
A5 Me

David

1981 –

Violin at three and a half, a guitar from a garage sale, and the fifth generation to carry the music.

Violin, trumpet, guitar Read David's story →
April 24, 2012 Stay tuned
A6 My daughters

Next

The sixth generation

She was barely walking, but dancing to Dad's new song “Sacred Road” in the basement while he tried to send a video to the band in New York. His kids grew up listening, and the music doesn't stop with David.

The next generation
The Sixth Generation, my crew
Singing her own birthday song▶ Watch on Facebook
Age two, a little rock star with her first guitar▶ Watch on Facebook

Emma passed it to Joe.Joe handed it to Milton.Milton gave it to Warren.Warren laid it in David’s hands.The music never died.

The thread doesn't stop with David. On Side B it runs through a summer night in 1985, a helicopter crew, and the reason every show he plays is free. Turn the record over →

A large number 6 pressed into the page, outlined by one red thread
Interlude

Six generations.
One song that never stopped.

  1. A1 Emma — A Swedish-American voice 1866
  2. A2 Joe — The farm boy who carried the tunes 1902
  3. A3 Milton — The steady one who kept the music playing 1930
  4. A4 Warren — The one who made it electric 1954
  5. A5 David — The one who still plays it 1981
  6. A6 My daughters — The ones who will keep it alive Now
Listen

Invitation to Remember

Isn't it extraordinary how a song can return us to a moment we thought we'd lost? A summer evening. Someone we loved. A younger version of ourselves who believed anything was possible. I invite you to listen, not just with your ears, but with your memories. You never know what beautiful part of yourself might come home.

03

Cello Suite No. 1

J.S. Bach · arranged for classical guitar

Cover songs at the shows, but classical at heart. David's own arrangement of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1, played at home at Christmas, 2021.

Watch on Facebook ↗
Why he plays
“Playing for free is my favorite way to say thank you to the people who taught me how, and those who gave me a second chance.”
David Olson
Side B · Why he plays

Side B opens on a summer afternoon in 1985.

David as a little boy in his Superman shirt, standing with his younger brother by the Christmas tree
“I wanted to be like Superman.”
Monticello, Minnesota
22 Aug 1985

David was four and a half when a falling industrial shelf full of motors fell on him.

“I was knocked unconscious, bleeding from my ears, and I lost my voice.”

Newspaper clipping from 1985 headlined Boy recovers from accident
A North Memorial helicopter lifting off above three North ambulances in the 1980s
An AirCare flight crew member in a red flight suit kneeling beside North Memorial helicopter N109BJ
A North Memorial AirCare helicopter flying past the Minneapolis skyline and Stone Arch Bridge at dusk
David as a young boy in a school portrait, wearing a dark green sweater
A crayon self-portrait drawn by young David, labeled David O
“Boy recovers from accident,” Monticello Times, 1985
That afternoon

A newly established medevac helicopter crew came for him.

North Memorial's AirCare flew him from Monticello to a trauma center. The program was only months old. Bob Field was the crew member caring for him in the air.

The original North Memorial AirCare flight crew in red flight suits beside their helicopter, Minneapolis skyline behind themWCCO · CBS MinnesotaWatch the story ↗40 years later, David meets the flight nurse who saved his life.
Forty years later

Bob still trains the people who do that work.

And David uses his voice “to be a voice for those who maybe don't have one.”

David and Bob Field smiling together in a restaurant boothDavid & Bob
This was the second time David and Bob met. The first time, Bob and the North Memorial crew saved his life.The Robert D. Field Lifeguard Scholarship · robertdfieldlifeguard.com ↗
So

He plays for free, and the room gives to the people who were there.

All proceeds from my performances support important educational, medical, humanitarian and conservation causes in our community.

David with Dr. Patrick Lilja and members of the North Memorial Air Care team outside the hangar
David holding a large photo of an early AirCare crew wheeling a patient from the helicopter
David with Dr. Patrick Lilja in the North Memorial Air Care hangar
David talking with Dr. Patrick Lilja on the North Memorial helipad
A North Memorial Health Air Care crew member putting on a flight helmet in front of a helicopter
The red thread, today · How it works

The music is free. The mission is bigger.

Donations are made through each recipient's own giving page. Nothing is collected on this site, and nothing passes through David.

01 Live and unfiltered. Just David, a guitar, and the room.No production, no setlist pressure — pure music. 02 Built for the moment. Coffee shop, bar, house concert, or benefit.The set flexes to the energy in the room. 03 Stories between the songs. Family history, experiences, and second chances.Every show carries a little of the why behind the music.
  1. 01
    Live and unfiltered.Just David, a guitar, and the room. No production, no setlist pressure — pure music.
  2. 02
    Built for the moment.Coffee shop, bar, house concert, or benefit. The set flexes to the energy in the room.
  3. 03
    Stories between the songs.Family history, experiences, and second chances. Every show carries a little of the why behind the music.
B1 · Scholarship

The Robert D. Field – Magaw 14,000 Lifeguard Scholarship

Named for the AirCare crew member who cared for David in the helicopter in 1985. It supports students training as nurse anesthetists at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, where Bob now teaches. Opens the university's giving page for the scholarship.

Support Bob's scholarship → B2 · Air ambulance

North Memorial Health AirCare

The helicopter program that flew David from Monticello to a trauma center in 1985. Opens David's own fundraising page for the North Memorial Health Foundation, hosted on JustGiving.

Support AirCare's next generation → B3 · Education

Personal Pathfinders

Volunteer classroom visits where top industry leaders share the real story behind their careers, founded by David. Opens the Personal Pathfinders site.

Support Personal Pathfinders →
Unsung Heroes

The people who got him here.

A doctor, a flight crew, a violin teacher. Short pieces about people whose names nobody knows, each one ending where you can give in their honor.

Read them all →
Dr. Patrick Lilja and David in the North Memorial Air Care hangar01The Visionary DoctorDr. Patrick Lilja

The air ambulance program that flew a four year old to a trauma center in 1985 was only months old. The man who built it is the reason there is anybody here to play.

Read →Bob Field in scrubs showing David an airway tube in a training room02The flight crewBob Field

Somebody was in the helicopter doing the actual work that night. Forty years later he is still training the people who do it now.

Read →03Giving backPersonal Pathfinders

Bringing real-life heroes, top industry leaders, and entrepreneurs into the classroom to share their stories.

Visit Personal Pathfinders ↗
Booking

Bring him
to your room.

Solo acoustic or full setup. Thirty years of reading a room: knowing when to lean in, and when to let the moment carry itself.

Coffee Shops Background · 1–3 hours
Bars & Taprooms Solo acoustic
Festivals Day stages
Benefit Concerts Fundraisers · any size
House Concerts Intimate · 20–60 guests

Every one of these is free. If the room gives, it goes to charity.

Ask about a date

Tell him roughly what the room is and when. He answers these himself.

Or email him directly: DavidOlsonMusic@gmail.com