He’s Gone Country
It’s amazing that a radio station would let Country Chuck Manning anywhere near a microphone.
In a radio universe where "live" isn’t always the norm, Manning’s two weekly classic country request shows on KWNR-FM, 95.5 — Sundays, from 6:15 to 10 a.m. and again from 6 to 9 p.m. — are utterly, unmistakably and for good or for bad, live.
In a broadcasting environment in which listeners feel lucky if they ever hear an actual DJ’s voice, Manning talks it up between every song he plays, offering one-liners, his own take on weird news stories, e-mails from readers and anything else he thinks listeners might find entertaining.
And, in a business in which the songs a station plays are apt to come from a playlist from corporate HQ and not a programmer’s gut, Manning begins each of his two weekly shows having no idea what listeners might request and what — given his song library and own often-idiosyncratic whims — he’ll end up playing.
Country Chuck Manning isn’t your typical radio DJ, circa 2007. But, to a band of devoted fans in Southern Nevada and — God bless the Internet — all over the world, he’s a welcome weekly break from broadcast monotony.
"He’s a very unique personality. That comes across on the air," says regular listener Rick Wooten, 51, of Las Vegas. "And what little I’ve talked to him face to face, he’s pretty much off the air as he is on the air."
Garry Linn, known to listeners as "Taxi Man" — and who says fares love it when he phones their requests in to the show — tunes in weekly because he loves classic country music and because "Chuck’s an entertaining guy. He’s quick-witted and makes the show entertaining."
Yet, it’s surprising that Manning would become anything that resembles a country-western music guru. While growing up in West Philadelphia, he had no interest in country music, didn’t listen to it and probably couldn’t have found any if he wanted to.
Instead, well into his 20s, Manning’s musical talents lay in singing in a doo-wop group called The Fantasys. They played at record hops, sang on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, and once even scored an 84 on American Bandstand’s "Rate-a-Record" segment.
"My ultimate dream was to have a hit record, which didn’t happen," says Manning, taking a break while preparing for a recent Sunday evening show. "But this was my second choice. I went into radio."
Manning attended broadcasting school in Philadelphia and landed his first job in Georgetown, Del. The problem, Manning says, was that they put him on a country show, "and I’d never heard a country song in my life." But Manning learned. In 1975, he came to Las Vegas to work at adult contemporary station KORK-AM. His resume includes time at country stations KRAM-AM and KFMS-FM and a few separate stints at KORK. And whenever a format change or new station management put him out of work, Manning drove cabs, delivered flowers and took on a variety of other jobs.
It was in 1999, at KFMS, that Manning started hosting a classic country request show. When the station changed formats, the show moved to KWNR.
Today, he hosts two live editions of that show each Sunday for country music fans who may have nothing against Shania or Toby, but enjoy the occasional dash of Tammy and Hank, too.
Russ Howard of Las Vegas, a regular listener since June 2000, says Country Chuck’s show is "the only place you can listen to classic country."
Michael Keeney of New Haven, Conn., discovered Country Chuck while searching for a country-western station to listen to via the Internet.
"I just got into the habit of listening to him on Sundays," Keeney says. "He’s kind of folksy, and the guy’s got a dry sense of humor."
"Taxi Man" Linn says he makes it a point to catch the morning show while driving his cab. Then, "Sunday evening, my wife and I sit at home and we have dinner while the radio is on. It’s listening to radio like it was back in the ’30s and ’40s."
Manning knows at least one listener in Tasmania, and another in England. There’s a guy who travels around the world on business and listens via the Internet, a family in Pflugerville, Texas, and a guy in Mound, Minn., which, he notes, is "home of the Andrews sisters."
Then, there’s his corps of loyal locals like Kosher Cowboy, Brooklyn Al and Texas Terry, who, Manning says, "calls in with a poem every Sunday morning."
What’s it like to have such a wide-ranging, geographically expansive fan base? It’s a good feeling," he says. "It really is."
Those fans also are Manning’s most knowledgeable teachers of country music history and trivia.
"If I screw up, they’ll tell me," says Manning, who’s no slouch at trivia himself. "They know country music. These are dyed-in-the-wool classic country folks who grew up with it."
By any measure, Manning’s show — personality driven, all-request, featuring music that’s decades old — is, by today’s standards, unusual. Manning jokes that KWNR program director Brooks O’Brian "probably shudders to think some of this stuff is being played on her radio station."
Yet, he adds, "she has given me a lot of creative freedom. She’s allowed me to do what I want to do, and I guess it’s working after all these years."
In 2003, Manning was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Earlier this year, readers made him runner-up as "Best Local Radio Personality" in the Review-Journal’s Best of Las Vegas poll.
Manning admits that, given his limited air time and the higher profile of other DJs around town, he was astonished.
"I don’t know how it happened," he says. "Only seven hours, and only on Sunday."
Actually, Manning says he’d love to find a full-time radio gig. But he loves what he does now and enjoys the freedom he has to do the kind of show he wants to do.
"This is the happiest time, when I’m on the radio," he says. "I just love it, and the calls never stop."
WHAT’S IN A NAME? It was at his first job that Country Chuck Manning (seldom-revealed given name: Charles Berberian) received the professional name that has served him so well. But, like many other DJs minted during the ’60s and ’70s, Manning has found himself answering to several other names over the years, too. Manning was dubbed "Country Chuck" during his first job, at a country station in Georgetown, Del. "A young fellow was walking through the studio one day — he worked for our FM — and he said, ‘Country Chuck!’ because my name was Chuck and I was playing country music." For a time, Manning also worked for the company’s FM rock station. There, he was Chuck "Main Man" Manning. Southern Nevadans might even remember that one: Manning used it while hosting an all-Elvis weekend show he used to do. (Weirdly enough, that show, taped earlier in the week, aired on another station opposite his live classic country show.) But Manning’s strangest radio christening probably came in 1972, at an oldies station in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. His name and title there: "Dingalong" Dan Dayton, The Mouth That Roared. "Whoever they hired was going to be ‘Dan Dayton,’ " Manning explains, because the station already "had the jingles made up." Today, Manning continues this radio tradition of catchy nicknames with the fans-turned-volunteers who help him out each Sunday: "Napster Jimmy" Posch, "Grouchy Grandpa" Gordon Hitchcock, and "Lady Lori" Rice. Dan Dayton, whoever he is, would approve. OFF THE AIR The Sunday radio shows aren’t Country Chuck Manning’s only gigs. During the week, Manning drives the courtesy bus for Findlay Chevrolet. Sometimes, Manning says, customers are surprised to find that the guy who’s driving them home from the shop is the guy they listen to on the radio. Once, Manning recalls, "this guy got his girlfriend on the phone and says, ‘Guess who’s driving me home?’ She says, ‘I don’t know.’ He says, "Sunday morning! Sunday morning!’ She says, ‘Country Chuck,’ and he puts me on." On Monday evenings, Manning hosts karaoke nights at the Gold Coast. Once the football season kicks off, he also emcees the resort’s Monday Night Football parties. Manning is "a character," says Mike Growney, the Gold Coast’s vice president and general manager. "He’s old school. He says what comes to his mind and he plays the music nobody else plays. A lot of us like that music. And, he’s irreverent." But here’s something else: Growney says Manning is also "actually basically shy. "Like, every year, I put up on the marquee, ‘Monday Night Football with Legendary DJ Country Chuck.’ Then when I introduce him, I say, ‘This guy is a legendary DJ.’ And he’ll start to get embarrassed."
