Stephen Yerkey

Stephen Yerkey is an alternative country singer-songwriter who was based in San Francisco for most of his career.

Yerkey was born in West Virginia and grew up in Kentucky. He began playing guitar at the age of 14, at which time he discovered Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

Yerkey was the frontman of the band Nonfiction, which released one album on Demon Records before it broke up. In 1990, he contributed a song titled "The Final Word" to the Alias Records AIDS benefit album "Acoustic Music Project." His solo debut, Confidence, Man, was released in 1995 on Heyday Records and produced by, among others, Pere Ubu's Eric Drew Feldman. His sophomore album, Metaneonatureboy, was released in 2006 on Echo Records. The latter album contained the song Translated from Love, which Kelly Willis later covered on her album of the same name. He has attributed his low rate of musical output to what he considers a lack of interest in his music.

Confidence, Man has been described as "...a lost classic waiting to be rediscovered by fans of Richard Buckner and Townes Van Zandt." Other critics have praised the album's tracks "Cocksucking Blonde" and "Maker's Mark," and have written that its music depicts the gritty aspect of life in San Francisco. He has also been called the "Elvis Costello of country." A review in the San Francisco Chronicle praised Yerkey's live performance at the Makeout Room, and described his music as "barroom laments, howled prayers and fiery indictments that burned with the intensity of a real person with real soul."