As the clock approached midnight on Saturday, Oct. 5, 1985, Chuck Haddix didn’t realize he was beginning a new era of radio in Kansas City.
“I remember how nervous I was, launching a new program,” Haddix said. “How exciting it was.”
That program, “Fish Fry,” has been on the air at the NPR radio station KCUR ever since, becoming a local institution with Haddix at its helm the entire time. He and KCUR have spent the past month celebrating the show’s 40th anniversary .
Haddix already was hosting a blues show on KCUR when he conceived of “Fish Fry,” and he adopted the persona of Chuck Haddock to present it.
“I had amassed a pretty significant blues collection,” he said. “But I wanted to do something that was a mix beyond the blues … a mix that included the blues, but also soul, zydeco and other slices of Americana.”
From its humble beginnings with a far-from-primetime time slot, “Fish Fry” has evolved into a twice-weekly four-hour fan favorite at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. He has played thousands of musical tracks, many of them new releases, and has interviewed hundreds of national and local musicians — always live. And always alone. He’s his own producer and control-room operator.
“It’s me and a stack of CDs and a stack of records,” Haddix said. “I’m an old-school DJ. I go in and do it live and kick it old school, play records and CDs. I don’t do digital files.”
Haddix, 74, served a long stint as director of the Marr Sound Archives at UMKC before retiring Sept. 1. He now concentrates on teaching a class on the history of Kansas City jazz at the Kansas City Art Institute and on “Fish Fry,” which involves about three hours of prep work for each show.
His goal is to reach 50 years of “Fish Fry,” but first comes the 40th-year celebration, which included a live show on Saturday.
“It seems like I just sat down in that chair yesterday,” he said. “I never get tired of the ‘Fish Fry.’ I always enjoy going in and doing it. Time goes by like pages in a calendar in an old clock.”
This story was originally published in The Kansas City Star.
