By Ben McCarthy
The spring semester is over at UMKC. It’s the last week of May and the campus is practically empty. That includes Miller Nichols Library.
On the ground floor of the library, Chuck Haddix is holed up in his office at the Marr Sound Archives. The south Kansas City resident seems to be in a small minority of campus employees who are maintaining their regular office hours on a slow Friday before the summer semester kicks off the following week. Haddix’s office inside the archives, where he serves as curator, is just adjacent to the listening room. On this Friday afternoon, Haddix’s focus turns to a restored jukebox (one that he’s had for almost 30 years). The relic of mid-20th century America greets all visitors as they enter a treasure trove that Haddix has worked doggedly to build since 1986.
“I used to spend a lot of quarters in (these),” Haddix said. “Back in the day.”
When the archives began 38 years ago, the only way people could sample records like the ones featured in that jukebox was to physically visit the UMKC campus.
Now, the archives collection of over 400,000 audio recordings can largely be accessed from anywhere in the world. No quarters necessary.
Colleagues say Haddix is chiefly responsible for making the Marr Sound Archives the thriving force it is today, not just for UMKC, but more broadly for Kansas City.
Haddix points to his mentor and the collection’s namesake, Gaylord Marr, a former UMKC associate professor of communication studies, as the worthy recipient of any praise.
“Gaylord’s dream was to establish a historical collection here at the university,” Haddix said. “He had stored all of these records at his home in Hyde Park. When I was a student I used to go over there and marvel at all of it.”
Haddix remembers Marr walking around the campus in the ’80s with a boombox and a bag of cassettes. He calls Marr a pioneer in audiovisual recordings for the classroom, decades before the digital age.
The Marr Sound Archives was established in 1986, with a foundation gift of 42,000 sound recordings from Marr and his wife, Olga. The collection quickly outgrew its original location (two rooms on the second floor of the library), and moved to its present location in 1992. The collection features a wide variety of music genres, including jazz, blues, soul, country, popular music, rock & roll, folk, classical and opera. Haddix is now hoping to grow the collection through non-musical audio recordings, such as historic speeches, interviews and other vintage radio programs. Donations to the archives come in a range of audio formats, including LPs, 78s, 45s, cylinders, transcription discs, instantaneous-cut discs, open-reel tapes, CDs and digital audio files.
Derek Long began working at the Marr Sound Archives eight years ago and now serves as head of the collection, handling day-to-day duties, freeing up Haddix to serve a broader role for the archives and around the community.
“He’s a local celebrity—he’s the expert and ambassador for Kansas City jazz,” Long said. “A lot of people come in to learn about jazz in Kansas City, whether they’re doing podcasts or a documentary. He’s getting interviewed regularly.”
Long says that the archives’ digitized content has tripled since he began working there in 2016, and online requests for content now double that of physical media requests.
Ron Jones, program director at KCUR 89.3 FM, still remembers hiring Haddix when he wanted to become a jazz announcer in 1984. A year later, Haddix started a program that would represent the kind of music people would hear at an old-fashioned fish fry.
“The show’s evolved over the years, but it’s always stayed true to its roots,” Jones said. “I’m surprised he’s done this for so long, and so passionately. He’s as dependable as the sun rising.”
Haddix (who on-air moniker is Haddock) confirms Jones’s suspicions that he puts about as much time into prepping for his Friday and Saturday Night Fish Fry broadcasts as the actual 4-hour radio programs themselves. KCUR indicates that the 40-year anniversary of the Fish Fry is on their radar for next year, and they plan to honor the show with a celebration. Like the archives, Kansas City’s public radio station says the proliferation of Internet accessibility around the world has only made Haddix a bigger local celebrity.
“We get feedback from all over Europe,” Jones said. “We’ve even found a few fans in Asia that listen to the show on a regular basis.”
Stuart Hinds, curator of special collections & archives at Miller Nichols Library, echoes Jones’s admiration of the way Haddix has gone about helping local artists, and what that has meant to the Sound Archives’s ability to steer collections. “If it hadn’t been for Chuck, the Sound Archive would not be the world class resource that it is today,” he said.
Discover more from Martin City Telegraph
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.