The Acoustic Guitar Project is a global music platform and concert series that takes place in 43 cities around the world inspiring musicians to write an original song and record it live in one week. SF Bay Area curator Steve Gallup chooses five local musicians and provides them with an acoustic guitar and a recorder. Each musician signs the guitar and takes a picture with it. We upload their song, their picture and video to the site. Then, the guitar is passed on to the next artist. This afternoon’s concert features Bay Area songwriters Jessie Bridges, Steve Meckfessel, Jeff Desira, DB Walker, and Jill McAnally each playing the song they wrote for the project—and tells the story behind it—along with two of their own originals.

Jessie Bridges is an Indie/Folk Singer-songwriter living in Oakland, California. Her songs weave their way through her laid-back roots, using words and melody to paint vivid pictures of her life story and the things she’s observed along the way. While Bridges' influences are more overtly apparent at times, it is clear that she is carving out a musical path of her very own.

Steve’s music is “his own blend of urban folk with bits of blues and jazz.” Sometimes funny, other times moving, his songs tell stories that were waiting to be told. He wrote his first song growing up His first CD, Twice, was featured on the hit TV show “JAG”. His next release, “Under Beautiful Skies” received world-wide radio play and enthusiastic reviews—in the words of one critic “The folk world has just been handed some of the best music it will ever hear.” At the most recent Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon the local music critic picked Steve as one of his two favorite artists in a star-studded line-up of 40+ acts (including several Grammy award winners) and named Steve his “surprise artist of the festival”.

Jeff Desira delivers hope and heartbreak with natural grace. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he has had a diverse musical career before coming into his own as a singer-songwriter, crafting honest and endearing pop songs and ballads. Desira’s debut solo album, Weathervane, contains songs he wrote about his time in New York. It also includes “When I Let Go”, a piece recalling a life-changing accident which rendered him unable to play guitar for four months. After a grueling recovery, in which he had to retrain his left hand, he returned to music in full force and began to record with producer Scott Mickelson.

From Oregon to Texas to Tennessee and now California, Jill has sung and yodeled her own handmade songs, great country classics, and whatever else tickles her fancy. She began playing coffee houses in Portland, Oregon, when she was 16, sitting in with the likes of Doc Watson and the John Anderson band. Don Everly of the Everly brothers has sung her praises. Her voice will catch your ear and make you sit up and pay attention.

D.B. Walker is a San Francisco Bay Area native songwriter and fixture on the local club scene. He is known for passionate guitar playing and gritty vocals to match.

visit the Acoustic Guitar Project website

visit the Jessie Bridges Facebook page

visit the Steve Meckfessel website

visit the Jeff Desira website

visit the DB Walker website