KXCI marks 40th year as Tucson's community radio station

Thanks to support from Tucson-born resale and vintage pioneer Buffalo Exchange, Tucson community radio station KXCI is throwing itself a birthday party on Friday, Dec. 8, to celebrate its 40th year.

Tucson’s own Orkesta Mendoza and Latin Grammy-winning Guatemalan singer-songwriter-producer Gaby Moreno will headline the celebration at El Casino Ballroom, 437 E. 26th St.

If you waited to get a ticket, you’re out of luck; the concert, a fundraiser for the community-supported radio station, has been sold out since late November.

For longtime KXCI supporters and listeners, the sellout is not a surprise; KXCI has had extraordinary success in presenting concerts not long after it first flipped the switch and went on the air on Dec. 6, 1983.

Beginning in 1986, the station hosted a near monthly House Rockin’ concert series with big-name zydeco performers and blues artists who were not on the radar of a lot of Tucson concert promoters. The series came to an abrupt end in 1991 when El Casino, the station’s primary host, lost its roof in a powerful wind storm. It returned a dozen years later when Tucson Americana promoter and longtime KXCI volunteer Jeb Schoonover launched the House Rockin’ Blues Review series. In July, the series marked its 10th anniversary when it hosted its first zydeco show in more than 30 years with BlackCat Zydeco featuring Dwight Carrier.

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Proceeds from those concerts benefit KXCI, which supports its $1.2 million annual budget through underwriting from local businesses, grants and listener donations, which bring in roughly half of the station’s revenues, said Amanda Shauger, KXCI’s operations and donor relations director.

Shauger said 35,000 people regularly tune into KXCI on the radio at 91.3 FM, where it has been since moving from its original spot at 91.7 FM in the early 1990s. Another 10,000 listeners from around the country and world listen to KXCI through its online live stream, Shauger said.

“What’s really interesting about KXCI is that we still have the basic philosophy that the station started out with, which is that we have the music mix Mondays through Fridays in the daytime and specialty shows at night and on weekends,” said Duncan Hudson, who will mark his 25th year as KXCI’s music director in January.

From 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., listeners can hear every imaginable genre of popular music from classic rock to Latin and soul, gospel, indie rock, mariachi, Native American and folk/Americana. The station has two paid drive-time personalities, Jim Blackwood’s “Your Morning Brew” from 7-10 a.m. weekdays and Hannah Levin’s “The Homestretch” from 3-6 p.m. weekdays. A few paid staffers including Hudson and the station’s Executive Director Elva De La Torre also clock in airtime alongside a handful of volunteers whose nighttime and weekend shows focus on everything from blues and indigenous voices to underground electronic music and classic Southern soul and funk going back to the 1950s.

“We’re trying to represent our entire community so making sure we focus on mariachi and native as well as the incredible array of local artists,” Hudson said, which demonstrates KXCI’s connection to the community, he added.

Programs are broadcast from KXCI’s two studios, the longtime Armory Park studio on South Fourth Avenue and its downtown studios, which KXCI opened in 2017 in a nook in Hotel Congress facing Congress Street.