Mike Kennedy has been the voice of country music across Newcastle and the Central Coast for more than 45 years.
Working at multiple radio stations both locally and nationally, he’s keen eye for great tunes has taken him across Australia, too.
Growing up in Scone, Mike always had a passion for the genre.
“I’d come home from school every afternoon with the wind-up gramophone and play country music,” he said.
“From there, it got into my heart and into my soul I guess.”
Looking back, Mike’s career has taken many turns over the past eight decades, after acquiring his first taste for radio in the mid-1960s.
“Before we got decimal currency in 1966, I saw an ad in the paper for training in radio,” he explained.
“That was at 2HD, where the program director used to run classes for a pound an hour to be trained.
“I used to do two hours a week because that was all I could afford.”
But, it wasn’t until many years later that he caught the broadcasting bug.
He studied speech and drama at the Australian College of Music in London, dabbling in singing and acting along the way.
In 1980, Mike was picked up by the station manager at 2NURFM to host their new country music program.
From there, he was hooked.
Mike’s iconic voice has appeared in stations across Australia, including a brief stint running the only radio country music program in South Australia in 1985.
In 1994, he began working at 2CCC Gosford, now known as CoastFM, where he ran his weekly show for more than three decades.
The Beresfield local would make the trip down to the Central Coast every week to play some of the best country tracks, both new and old.
In 2016, Mike was inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame in Tamworth, for his countless contributions to the genre.
When asked about the times before digital music, Mike told the Newcastle Weekly he does not miss the days of vinyl.
“I did the midnight till dawn shift,” he said.
“At 4 o’clock in the morning, your body would close down, and your eyes would start to shut because you wanted to sleep.
“But, you had to play so many songs an hour on vinyl records, and some of them had 20 songs on them.
“So, you can imagine having fluorescent light at 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re trying to count the songs.
“It wasn’t easy.
“Now, you just sit there and put your USB drive in and click play.”
During his career as a broadcaster, Mike’s been no stranger to fame either, telling tales of run-ins with Australian country music icons Slim Dusty and Jimmy Little.
He reminisced fondly of a time in 1981, where he joined Little on stage to sing the classic tune Baby Blue at the Wallsend Soccer Club’s former venue, the Crystal Palace.
Fans of country music can still listen to his golden voice on air, with his show now broadcasting on Today’s Country 94.1FM every Sunday from 9am to noon.
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