Jake Reno is Central Bank of Sedalia’s Unsung Hero for November

Jake Reno is our Central Bank of Sedalia’s Unsung Hero for the month of November!

Jake is a songwriter, singer, guitarist, harmonica player and a solo performer who entertains at a variety of venues in Missouri and beyond.

You can catch Jake at his next local performance this Friday, Dec. 5 starting at 8 p.m., at The End Zone in Sedalia.

Follow Jake Reno Music on Facebook and you’ll stay informed on all of Jake’s upcoming live music appearances, as well as catch the videos that he posts.

His latest music video is called Turquoise Cowboy and you can see it here.

That video was produced by Best Take Media right here in Sedalia.

If you want to flash back to six years ago in 2019, you can see another video of Jake performing at Craft Beer Cellars (now Local Tap).

And you just may feel a connection with Jake once you see him perform Workin' For A Livin'

“Anytime I can play a local show for my hometown, I love it,” Jake commented. “So if you folks are in the area, come on out, I’d love to see you all.”

Jake has been performing for live audiences since 2017, and he says he loves every minute of it.

“I was the lead guitarist for the Hundred Proof Band. That was a nice little chapter for me and I learned a lot with the band. And, you know, after about a year with them, I kind of branched out and wanted to dive in and do my own thing and write my own songs and haven’t looked back since,” Jake recalled.

Jenn Templeton nominated Jake for the honor of being a Central Bank of Sedalia Unsung Hero.

Here’s what she had to say:

“Jake is a phenomenal musician and a very busy man. Yet, he finds time, when he is home, to volunteer at our local nursing home facility and play live music for the residents. Jake recently played for the residents during an event call “Blues, Brews and Tattoos” at EW Thompson Center, back in June, and the residents adored him. It was so great to see everyone clap and sing along with him! Jake made their day, and the rest of ours, better too. Jake has since gone back a couple of times to play for them again. Truly, Jake is an all-around good guy, and he does a lot for others. I think he is an unsung hero!”

“That was a really fun event,” Jake recalled, adding that Adam Templeton reached out to him about playing for the residents. “It was just something I was really excited to jump on, and it was an honor to go out and play for them folks, it was really fun.”

Jake added that he was told they don’t get a lot of live music at the facility. “I just thought that was a shame to me to hear that. I was like, oh goodness. Any time you guys need to party with some live music, give me a call, I’m your man!”

Jake said his approach with nursing home residents is to play a couple of Waylon Jennings tunes at first, then slip in a few of his originals. “And they go ‘who’s that?’ and I say ‘that’s me!’”

Almost everything Jake performs is an original tune, which is saying a lot. How does he do it?

“I don’t know,” Jake laughed. “You know, I just get these ideas, and you put a pen and paper in front of me, and I just bring them to like, you know? That’s what I do as a songwriter and a crafter. I’m always trying to hone my skills,” he said.

“The process is different for everybody,” Jake explained. “Sometimes I might have a guitar riff, and I’ll just hear a melody in my head, and I just start humming some lines out, and I’ll be like ‘oh OK that sounds good’ and sometimes the idea just hits me, just lands right in my lap and in five or ten minutes I have a whole song out.”

Jake went on to note that “My notebook is full of scribbles and lines and lyrics, that sometimes I don’t get back around to for a year or two. And I’ll pull that idea out of the closet and knock the dust off it and write it out.”

Many of Jake’s originals come from real-life experiences, something he calls “three chords and the truth.”

Jake says he just loves writing his own material. “For me, the best thing about it is writing a song, then going out and playing it live and that song takes its first breath, and the way it resonates with people. You never know what song is going to impact people … it’s different for everybody. That’s the best part about it,” Jake told KSIS.

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Jake is a Sedalia native, born in 1993. He turned 32 on Veteran’s Day.

He moved to Arizona for a month or two when he was 15 years old, living with family and went to shool there for a while.

“I was really kind of getting into trouble, you know, and dad was like ‘Hey, you gotta come back home. We gotta get you straightened out.’” Jake recalled.

Jake has a lot of irons in the fire right now. One of those irons involve a studio collaboration with fellow local musician Clay Clear.

In addition, Jake already has about 30 shows booked for 2026 so far.