Barry Lee shakes things up at KKFI 90.1

Barry Lee is a talker — a good one. Since January, when he took over as station manager at community-radio station KKFI 90.1, he has run his mouth nonstop, telling as many people as he can about his vision for community radio.

Lee’s involvement marks a significant turning point for KKFI, which spent seven years without a station manager, run instead by a board of directors. Lee — involved with the station since its inception in 1986, before it even began broadcasting, and the host of Sunday night’s free-form Signal to Noise since 1988 — recognized the need for a leader: someone to answer questions, represent the station with authority and make quick decisions. So he volunteered.

The station already sounds a little different. Lee has added a couple of new shows with familiar hosts. Jason Vivone holds down Thursday-afternoon blues show The Boogie Bridge, and Mikal Shapiro and Kasey Rausch co-host Sunday-morning folk show River Trade Radio.

When I called Lee at his Lawrence home, he told me that more changes are coming.

The Pitch: Where did your original interest in radio come from?

Lee: I’ve always loved music. When I was a kid, I used to buy 45s because they were like 18 cents back then. And I had my own “Top 10” every week: On Friday, I’d play my top-10 records in my bedroom. “This is number one this week,” I’d say [to no one]. And you know when you’re at a party, someone might commandeer the music? I used to do that. I’ve always been involved in music in some way and always loved it. When I retired [from his full-time management job] about four years ago, I was just doing my show [Signal to Noise] and some benefits for KKFI.

How did you get the station manager position?

Well, I had kind of already been thinking of offering my services as a manager, and I went to a luncheon with Louis Meyers [former Folk Alliance International executive director], and he said something to the effect of, “I’d like to work with KKFI, but I don’t know who to speak to.” And I knew the Folk Alliance was going to be important, and I knew it was something we would need to do. I went to the personnel committee and board of directors and said, “Hey, I think we need to have someone in charge. I think I can do the job.” I spent an hour and a half outlining what I wanted to do. I was hired as of January 1.

What are some of the ideas you have for the station or changes you’d like to make?

KKFI is in a unique position. We are a 100,000-watt station, which means we have a signal that reaches an 80-square-mile radius beyond the city, and we’re online. And because we’re a community station, we aren’t married to any specific genre or style of talk.

It’s an exciting time in the city right now. The Folk Alliance seems to have galvanized a lot of people with the idea that we could work together, and it’s really cool about how excited everybody is for the high quality of the art being produced in the city now. I want to unite people and use KKFI as a focal point for that.

One of the things I want to do is live broadcasts. In February, we did a Kickstarter campaign to get audio broadcasting and equipment for live broadcasts, and we broadcast two nights live from the Folk Alliance — our local stage on opening night and then Red House Records. We’re working on stuff like that. Next year, we’ll probably do three nights.

The other thing that I wanted to do was focus on transitioning the station into having younger programmers. The folks that started the station, many of them are long gone now or they’re getting up there in years. The time has come for the station to start transforming itself, and I wanted to rewrite how we accept show proposals and how we get people to come do shows. I wanted to make it a little harder to get a show, and I wanted the people that we do get to be talented. I want young people, people that have an audience, that will bring their own audience to the station.

It seems like you’re really pushing for new things and big changes.

When people come to me with ideas, my default answer is “yes.” My thing is, “Let’s do it, let’s try it, let’s see what happens.” If it doesn’t work, we won’t try it again. That’s the viewpoint I’ve been bringing to the station.

In my mind, I don’t think I’ve accomplished anything yet. For me, it’s moving at much too slow a pace, but I need to take things one step at a time. We’ve just hired a new events coordinator — it’s not official yet, so I can’t give you the name — but I think it’s going to be a real game-changer for us. We’re going to be able to do more interesting and cool and different little events around town, some big, some small. And the other thing, down the road, is that we need to get our own building.

How do you see the legacy of KKFI — 26 years old this past February — fitting into Kansas City today?

We’ve always been undervalued in the community, this itty-bitty station over in the corner that does some weird stuff. And for the longest time, the arts community didn’t really take much notice. We’re an undiscovered treasure in Kansas City. We started from nothing, and now we’re 100,000 watts. That’s really uncommon. To have a station with that kind of power and signal is unusual in the United States when you’re not corporate. One of the things that I’m attempting to do is raise our profile a little bit. I’ve really spent half my life working in community radio. We’re going back to the original intent of radio, aside from selling things — the idea that radio is local and the community is involved in it.

There are no boundaries. We can literally do anything. It’s interesting to see how the station has not only embraced local music but given it a home. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of us getting better sound and getting a space together.