Fish Fry

Music runs in Nick Schnebelen 's family, especially the blues. His parents, Lisa Swedlund and the late Robert Schnebelen, were musicians known for the band Little Eva and the Works. Music was always playing around the house, and when he was about 10, Schnebelen recalled, his dad started listening to a lot of blues. "I started really getting into it around 12, 13," Schnebelen told Chuck Haddix, host of KCUR's Fish Fry. "And I just loved the way the blues guitar sounded, you know. I just...

Trumpeter Hermon Mehari , 31, is a Missouri native, who’s now based in Paris. In 2010, Mehari graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where, as a student, he earned early acclaim as one of the founders of Diverse. The jazz group released two CDs, and toured the U.S. and Europe. Mehari released his own debut album, "Bleu," in 2017. He spoke with Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix about his career and his ties to Kansas City: HADDIX : Hermon, to quote...

Kansas City songwriter Amanda Fish has just proclaimed herself " Free ." That's the title song on her newly released sophomore album, after 2015's " Down in the Dirt ." The record reflects Fish's literal and philosophical growth. The older sister of another Kansas City singer, Samantha Fish (who has a few more records to her credit), Amanda started playing music at 18 but set that aside to earn a living. By age 25, she was working as a security guard and unhappy, so she quit to go into...

Folk singer and songwriter Danny Cox has been a fixture of the Kansas City music scene since he moved here from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1967. Cox played at classic venues like the Vanguard Coffee House in the 1960s, and the Cowtown Ballroom in the '70s. And he's still performing. When Cox recently turned 75, KCUR's Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix spoke with Cox about his life and career, starting with his song "Kansas City": CHUCK HADDIX: Kansas City has long been a destination in song. And we've...

Kansas City blues and soul singer Danielle Nicole has a new release, her second solo album, called "Cry No More." For this latest recording, Nicole said she trusted herself and took some chances. She wrote nine of the 14 tracks, including a song about her late father, "Bobby." Before she fronted her own band, Nicole sang and played bass in Trampled Under Foot , a blues trio with her brothers, Kris and Nick Schnebelen. Fish F ry host Chuck Haddix has been following Danielle Nicole’s career...

Kansas City trumpeter and tap dancer Lonnie McFadden has been performing since he was in grade school. He's known as half of the act called The McFadden Brothers; Lonnie and his brother Ronald play music, sing and tap dance — carrying on a family tradition started by their father, dancer and performer Smilin' Jimmy McFadden.

The Hammond B-3 organ is one of the most recognizable sounds in American music. Kansas City musician Chris Hazelton plays that instrument on his new record, Soul Jazz Fridays , recorded live with his band Boogaloo 7, at the Green Lady Lounge. Hazelton spoke with the Fish Fry about the history of soul jazz music in Kansas City. "It was where jazz musicians intersected with the soul and funk genres of the mid-'60s, early '70s," Hazelton said. "You had guys that could really cross genres if...

Musicians Betse Ellis and Clarke Wyatt started playing as Betse & Clarke , a fiddle and banjo duo, in late 2014. Their latest album is called River Still Rise . Wyatt told Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix that, despite each performing in the Kansas City music scene for nearly two decades with bands like The Wilders and Mr. Marco's V-7 , their first musical connection was just a few years ago at the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield, Kansas. "The first time we really played together, and...

In late July, blues band Levee Town released its first recording in five years. Guitarist and vocalist Brandon Hudspeth has been with Levee Town since the beginning. A transplant from Oklahoma, Hudspeth moved to the Kansas City area when he was 19. He played in bands, such as The MO City Jumpers, before co-founding The Cobalt Project — and some of the members of that group went on to create Levee Town. Though he's known for his blues playing, Hudspeth also has jazz chops. HUDSPETH : "I...

Singer Linda Shell has long been described as the "Queen of Kansas City Blues." This weekend, Shell will be crowned Queen, and her husband, K.C. Kelsey Hill, will be King, when the Kansas City Kansas Street Blues Festival returns after a six-year hiatus . From 1975 to 1984, Shell's mother, Delores Graham, owned a club at the corner of 39th and Jackson in Kansas City, Missouri, called Blues Alley. This is where the two musicians first got to know each other, as they told The Fish Fry's host...

The American Jazz Museum celebrates two Kansas City musical acts this weekend with Lifetime Achievement Awards for the McFadden Brothers and Ida McBeth . McBeth's musical memories go all the way back to when she was five years old at church, singing the solo on a song called “It’s In My Heart.” McBETH: “I always sounded like a grown woman, even when I was a little girl. So I got up one Sunday morning and they said, 'We’re gonna have Miss McBeth come up here, little old Miss McBeth. Come on...

For the past six years, Victor & Penny — aka Jeff Freling and Erin McGrane — have traveled the country performing original music, as well as jazz and pop standards. Starting as a duo, playing tight harmonies on guitar and ukulele, they’re now backed by their Loose Change Orchestra. Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix talked to Victor & Penny about their latest album, Electricity , and the creative process: On creating their own kind of sound "It's kind of a '20s sort of a prohibition-era band with...

Folk Alliance International kicks off its annual conference —and a new Music Fair — Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. The five-day event is expected to draw nearly 3,000 musicians from around the world. Local folk performers will also be in the spotlight, such as Kasey Rausch . The singer-songwriter's latest full-length album, her third, is called Guitar in Hand. It's her first CD since 2007. "I couldn't not make music. I had to make music. It's part of my being, so I decided to give it...

The band Maria the Mexican describes its sound as Americana soul and Mexicana groove. Sisters Maria and Tess Cuevas got their start in Mariachi Estrella , an all-female mariachi band founded by their grandmother, the late Teresa Cuevas . In 2011, they branched out to form Maria the Mexican, with guitarist Garrett Nordstrom. The Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix talked to the two sisters about their mariachi roots and debut album called Moon Colored Jade. Interview Highlights: Maria and Tess...

Jazz pianist and bandleader Tim Whitmer has gained a reputation for building on jazz traditions, as well as performing original compositions. Whitmer is a mainstay at jazz clubs, but he also plays in local churches. Whitmer spoke to Chuck Haddix, who hosts the KCUR music program, The Fish Fry on Friday and Saturday nights. Interview Highlights: Tim Whitmer On merging the sacred and the secular "One of the real turning points for me...was actually when I was at the UMKC Conservatory , and...

Roots and R&B singer/songwriter Kelley Hunt says when she first started singing, her grandmother, a gospel singer, gave her this advice: Dont sing it, if you dont mean it. Hunt was born in Kansas City, Mo. and grew up in Emporia, Kan. She told Fish Fry host Chuck Haddix that her parents always had music playing in the house, including jazz, blues, R&B and Motown. I think I got it through osmosis. And there was such an appreciation for it that, shoot, I thought everybodys family played this...