The Acoustic Guitar Project
One guitar. One week. One song.
The Acoustic Guitar Project is a global music platform—and concert series—that inspires musicians to write and record a song in one week on the same guitar.
The project originated in New York City and has spread around the world. Projects are underway in more than 50 cities, from Amsterdam to Asheville, Havana to Hanoi, Minneapolis to Moscow, and São Paulo to...Syracuse.
Syracuse has one of the longest-running projects in the world, curated by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers. To date, Syracuse songwriters have written 60 songs on the project guitar, donated by Maryland’s Minor Bird Musical Instruments.
➢ Listen to all the songs on the Acoustic Guitar Project website or in the playlist below.
➢ Listen to a sampling of project songs (some in their original project recordings, some in new versions) on Spotify.
Upcoming
June 21, 2025: Acoustic Guitar Project Reunion at Syracuse’s 443 Social Club
Featuring John Cadley, Alison Mullan-Stout, Wendy Sassafras Ramsay, and Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
Four Syracuse songwriters share their project songs and other originals in an intimate, collaborative acoustic concert.
John Cadley began playing guitar at 13 and hit the charts at 18 as a member of the Glen Coves, which had a Top 40 hit in 1963 with the folk anthem “Hootenanny.” Cadley has played with such seminal Northeast bands as the Down City Ramblers, Cross Creek, Texas Hots, and the Lost Boys, and toured out of Nashville with the Clay and Sally Hart Show. Cadley’s song “Time,” recorded by Lou Reid and Carolina with harmonies by Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill, topped the bluegrass charts for three months, and his song “The Hard Years” won Best Bluegrass Song in the Just Plain Folks Awards. Cadley’s songs have been covered by national artists such as Tony Trischka, Jim Hurst, Missy Raines, and Dede Wyland. Cadley’s current CD, I Never Knew, won the 2023 Sammy for Best Americana Recording.
Alison Mullan-Stout is an Irish-born singer-songwriter based in Syracuse (Haudenosaunee land). You can catch her with Honey for the Bees (queer-fronted indie-rock band, heavy with harmonies and a dose of angst), Alison and Zoë (folky emotional storytelling with sibling harmonies), co-facilitating therapeutic music groups with Singing Soulutions, or leading the crowd in song at local pro-democracy rallies. Her songwriting style and stage presence are candid, down to earth, and deeply resonant.
Wendy Sassafras Ramsay studied clarinet at Crane School of Music, and artists such as Simon and Garfunkel, They Might Be Giants, the Violent Femmes, and Liz Phair inspired her to write songs. Along with her famously quirky originals, she is a versatile multi-instrumentalist (flute, clarinet, accordion, guitar) and vocalist. She performs with Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers as the duo Pepper and Sassafras and with the band Dead to the Core, and with the alternative rock band Starting Off Red.
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers has combined his twin passions for words and music into a multifaceted career as a musician, author, and teacher. A grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, he plays kinetic folk rock, combining vivid imagery and storytelling with masterful band-in-a-box guitar playing. Along with his original music, he leads the acoustic collective Dead to the Core, which hosts the Shakedown Sunday series at the 443 and performs around the Northeast. Rodgers is founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine and author of The Complete Singer-Songwriter and many other books and videos for musicians. In 2024, he was inducted into the Syracuse Area Music Hall of Fame as a music educator.
Save the date
Nov. 7: 12th annual Syracuse Acoustic Guitar Project Concert
Hosted by the Folkus Project, Syracuse
Syracuse project songwriters
This playlist includes all the project songs to date, in the order they were written.
2024
2023
2022
Amanda Rogers ~ J. Schnitt ~ Mark Allnatt ~ Susan Coleman and Mike Gridley ~ Chuck Schiele
2021
2020
The 2020 project showcased next-generation songwriters—all in their teens to early 20s.
Watch the closing concert above, streamed live from Subcat Studios. Thanks to concert sponsor Ish Guitars. Project photos of Ella Drotar, Emalee Herrington, and Nate Glyn are by Tom Honan.
2019
2018
2017
Mark Hoffmann ~ Andrew Ruddy and Monique Ritter ~ Jane Zell ~ John McConnell ~ Stephen Douglas Wolfe
2016
2015
Donna Dennihy ~ Kim Monroe and Chris Eves ~ Joe Driscoll ~ Jeff Jones ~ Eddie Zacholl
2014
Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers ~ Wendy Ramsay ~ Tim Burns ~ Colleen Kattau ~ Colin Aberdeen
Dana “Short Order” Cooke ~ Ashley Cox ~ John Cadley ~ Arty Lenin ~ Gary Frenay
In memory of Jack O. Bocchino
Jack O. Bocchino, the legendary supporter of the Central New York music scene who passed away in March 2020, was a major contributor to the Acoustic Guitar Project in Syracuse (learn more about Jack here). Jack photographed all the songwriters for the first six years of the project, as collected in this video. The soundtrack is “Twenty One Rounds” by Mike Powell, written for the project in 2016.
Till I’m Alone with You
I released my project song as a single in 2020. More about the song.
Only One
I wrote this song in 2022 when the Syracuse project reached the milestone of 50 songs, and I perform it here on the project guitar.