Katy Daley: Behind the Mic, At the Heart of Bluegrass

If you've attended the IBMA awards over the past several years, you've heard Katy Daley's voice. She announces the nominees for the annual awards show. But last year, she stepped from behind the microphone to the spotlight when she was inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

When she started working on the radio, Katy had never dreamed of such accolades. The Washington, DC native went to college in Brevard, North Carolina. "Everyone there was born with an instrument in their hand, and they were all dancers and cloggers. On the weekends, students without dates spent time in the dorm lobby for hootenannies. They didn't call them that, but it's essentially what they were." She returned to Washington to earn a BA in communications.

Katy says she had never heard of the term "bluegrass" before returning to Washington. Looking back, she says her natural progression towards bluegrass began when her dad sang songs to Katy and her brother before bed. "He sang gruesome songs like 'Wreck of the Old '97' and 'The Prisoner Song,' yet we never had bad dreams. By the way, 'The Prisoner Song' was the first million-selling country music song."

When her father was stationed in Okinawa while in the military, Katy listened to "The Rice Patty Roundup" on Armed Forces Radio. "A song came on one day – 'Pike County Breakdown.' It was like a bolt of lightning," says Katy. "I had never heard anything like it." After college, Katy listened to Gary Henderson's Saturday morning bluegrass show on WAMU. Washington had a thriving bluegrass scene, and Katy volunteered to compile and announce the area's concerts, club dates, and festivals on Gary's show. That volunteer gig launched her career in broadcasting.

Each thing Katy did led her to the next thing, and over the years, her storied broadcasting career has taken her to extraordinary heights. She took over the 10 p.m. to midnight spot at WAMU and then alternated the afternoon drive-time show with Jerry Gray. In addition to getting to know the community of bluegrass musicians and fans through her work at the radio station and volunteering at events, she began a lifelong practice of teaching others. She encouraged fans to share their personal record collections and taught those interested how to run a control board and host a show on-air. "I have taught a lot of people how to do radio over the years."

Katy left public broadcasting in 1979, moving to WMZQ-AM/FM, Washington's commercial country station. In her nearly two decades there, she worked as an overnight DJ, program director of the AM station, public affairs director, and member of the on-air morning team. In 1991, she produced a documentary on Arlington National Cemetery that received an honorable mention at the International Radio Festival in New York. In 1994, she won the Achievement in Radio (AIR) award for best mid-length interview of the year.

In 2006, Katy returned to WAMU's 24-hour streaming station, bluegrasscountry.org. The following year, she took over the weekday morning show and remained there for a decade. She followed that with a writing gig for Bluegrass Today and launched the Bluegrass Stories podcast with Howard Parker.

A Lifetime Member of the IBMA, Katy is a 2008 Leadership Bluegrass class graduate. She was named the IBMA Broadcast Personality of the Year in 2009 and 2011. In 2019, she picked up the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award. She was also awarded the 2019 and 2020 IBMA Liner Notes of the Year honor for her contribution to Epilogue: A Tribute to John Duffy for Smithsonian Folkways, and as the sole writer for Rebel Records' re-release of Seldom Scene Recorded Live at the Cellar Door.

She recently joined the Board of the IBMA's Bluegrass Foundation. With a mission to build a brighter future for bluegrass music, the Foundation "helps create a bluegrass legacy by supporting programs and projects that focus on bluegrass music-related arts and culture, education, literary work, and historic preservation," according to their website. It's an organization Katy is passionate about. "We award numerous scholarships and grants. I can see that it genuinely makes a difference. I encourage everyone to visit bluegrassfoundation.org to learn more about the organization.

While she may be retired from radio, Katy is as busy as ever. She has learned to play the banjo and is now taking guitar lessons. In addition to her work on the Bluegrass Foundation Board, she started the Katy Daley Broadcast Media/Sound Engineering Scholarship with her husband, Bill Brown. "When our son finished his academic career, we found ourselves with a little extra money, so we started the scholarship. We want to help those interested in learning more about broadcasting or sound engineering. There are plenty of schools for musicians, but the sound engineers are a real partner with the musicians. And the broadcasters play their music for the world to hear. For bluegrass to be successful, it takes three things: music, business, and community. You can't have one without the others."