915 East Broadway
Columbia, MO 65201
(573) 874-5676

Sunday Morning Coffeehouse

Sunday 9:00 AM - Noon
Hosted by Steve Jerrett
"...the home of the best in folk and acoustic music"

As you can tell from the history of the show and my introduction of the home page, my love of music, especially folk and acoustic music, goes back a long way. While many my age (late baby boomer generation) were enthralled with Top 40 radio hits, I was listening to classical and jazz on the radio as well as in my parents' collection of 78s and, later, LPs. I was also raised on many other genres of music including music from a competing artistic love of my life, musical theatre.

From an early age, I was not only an avid listener but also found my own creative juices flowing as well. As I pursued acting throughout my public school career in Marblehead, MA, I explored various musical instruments including piano, clarinet, flute, trumpet, upright bass, violin and accordian. It wasn't until 1962 that I discovered the guitar and that's all she wrote. I learned that I had what was called "relative pitch" and was able to teach myself to play the guitar by playing along with records. At the same time, I had developed a decent singing voice by singing in church choirs and performing with All-District and All-New England choruses. In connection with that, I was fortunate to audition successfully for a chorus that toured Europe in 1966, the Concordia Youth Chorale. I also learned that I was a fairly decent character actor and landed various roles in High School and community theatre, later pursuing a theatre major at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Along the way, I've been fortunate to perform both as a solo acoustic folk singer and songwriter/fingerstyle guitarist as well as part of duos and groups. What all of these experiences have given me is an appreciation for how much work it is to write and perform, especially as a solo artist. My admiration goes out to the countless performers who are chasing the elusive dream of a career in music, just to share the passion of music and the fruits of that Creative Spark.

While living in Denver, Colorado, I began volunteering at a community television station in Broomfield, KBDI. As MTV was just being born, I was one of several veejays at KBDI airing music videos like Michael Jackson's Thriller and the Grateful Dead's Ripple. It was fun and a way to stay involved in music in some way once the coffeehouses had closed up shop and disco was stinking up the airwaves. The experience also gave me a sense of how to construct a set of music that made sense, how to sequence various selections so that one would build on the previous one and lead naturally to the next.

I returned to the Boston area in 1983 after a a prolonged trip down the dark roads of the sixties and seventies (do YOU remember those years?). It wasn't long before I got involved with a coffeehouse in Belmont, a suburb of Boston, called the Second Friday Coffeehouse. I was soon co-managing the venue which became known as "New England's First All-Benefit Coffeehouse" and had the priviledge of booking such wonderful folks as Bob Franke, Bill Staines, Eric Kilburn, Gail Rundlett, Brooks Williams, Catie Curtis and Vance Gilbert. It was a once a month evening full of music, beginning with an opening act, then the main artist, followed by an open mic. We soon learned that anyone might show up for that, including surprise appearances by folks like Pat Humphries and Dar Williams. I even had opportunites to share some of my own songs and instrumentals along the way. While it was hard work for ten months out of the year, it was a time whose memories I will always treasure.

In 1991, my wife landed a job at a university in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1992, I packed up and joined her, settling in Columbia. A chance meeting on an airplane between her and the then president of KOPN's board of directors led me to become involved with the station as a volunteer. In addition to my work as host and programmer of the Sunday Morning Coffeehouse, I had the opportunity to serve on the board of directors as treasurer. In August of 2001, I became music director, a volunteer job I hold up to the present.

To pay the bills, I have been employed by the I.T. department of the City of Columbia as a Systems Analyst since 1993.