Jerry Christen (on left) with Singer/Songwriter Bill Staines

Patty Larkin's concert at A New Song Coffeehouse May 3 will be a bittersweet reunion.  Now a Vanguard recording artist and national folk-pop star, the Cape Cod songwriter first played the Bedford club in 1985, its first season.  Until this year, it was managed by founder Jerry Christen, one of the most important and best-liked figures in the local folk scene.  After a long battle with cancer, he passed away last March at 66.

Larkin says the abundance of these suburban folk venues is what turned the Boston area into the folk Mecca it is today.  "I don't think a circuit like this exists anywhere else in the country," she says.  "When all these places opened in the '80s, like A New Song and the Homegrown Coffeehouse in Needham, it gave us all a ground to stand on and started what's happening now, with so many singer-songwriters in the Boston area."

She fondly recalls Christen as someone who always cared enormously about the production values at his venue, making sure that both performers and audience had a first-rate evening.

He was also a driving force in helping other coffeehouses get started, reaching out to help new venues.  In 2000, he founded the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA), a guild of nonprofit folk clubs that now has 22 active member venues.

"To me, Jerry just embodied what's best about the whole folk music community," says BACHA treasurer Steve Gretz, who manages the Mozaic Room Coffeehouse at the Avon Baptist Church, where he is pastor.  "He really loved the music, but even more, I think he loved people and loved getting people to cooperate and work together.  That was a real gift he had, a gift for community."

Christen was BACHA's president, and helped shape it into a vibrant networking organization.  Gretz says it was Christen's idea to put advice on starting a coffeehouse on the BACHA website (www.bostoncoffeehouses.org), along with member information and concert listings.

"Jerry was very clear that we should encourage anybody who wanted to start a coffeehouse,” Gretz says.  "And to me, that's the most important thing about BACHA, how it's changed all our attitudes.  I don't see these venues as competitors anymore; I know them as friends and colleagues."

Christen's entire life was devoted to community-building activities.  A career Air Force officer, he was the first Hanscom Air Force Base representative to the Lincoln school committee in the '70s.  After retiring from the Air Force, he worked as a management consultant, then as director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Council for Quality Control.  He also founded the Bedford Center for the Arts, and was president of the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society.

Jerry Christen (center) with some of the volunteers from the 2001 Boston Folk Festival Coffeehouse Stage

In a sweet irony, BACHA is now a great help to its late founder's daughter, Linda Christen, as she takes over the reins of A New Song Coffeehouse.  "BACHA has helped me feel more connected to the folk community," she says.  "Other members are helping me contact performers, giving me tips and offering any support I need.  Just knowing BACHA is there to lean on is a big comfort to me.  My dad would definitely appreciate that."