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Steve Barile

Steve Barile’s wonderment with radio began when his teenage aunt and her girlfriend, dressed in cashmere and poodle skirts, took the five-year-old boy in a red Pontiac convertible with leather seats, to a radio station located in the middle of Fresno’s Farmer’s Market. There, he met on-air personality, and disc jockey, Sam Schwann and developed a fascination with radio. After a childhood apprenticeship of listening to KYNO Radio on a rocket crystal radio set, clipped to the curtain rod in his bedroom for an antenna, radio became his destiny. He began his music-playing career as a disc jockey for junior high school sock hops. From there, he obtained his third-class radio broadcaster’s license, and worked as an operator at radio and television stations in Fresno, and Canada. In 1978, he was hired as "Director of Creative Services," for Forrest Communications, owners of KZOZ, FM 93 in San Luis Obispo, California. There, he met "Program Director" Don Fischer.

Developing an interest in Western Swing music for Steve Barile started when he was young. "The first music I remember hearing was the fiddle downbeat to ‘Take Me back to Tulsa,’ by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. My uncle, on Saturday afternoons, would put the record on his hi-fi in his den, and play the fiddle along with the record. He was a big fan of Bob and a regular at the old Barn. In 1962, he took me to the Barn to see Bob and the boys. But sadly, Bob didn’t show up. In attendance was the band of local musicians who had played with Bob, Joe Holley, Harley Huggins, Alex Brashears, and others. The rumor was that Bob was drunk in a motel in Arizona and couldn’t make the appearance. After my uncle died, I inherited his fiddle and collection of Bob Wills records. I spent a lot of time listening to the music and learning about it. It’s been sort of a hobby."

As a result, Barile has written extensively about the music and Bob Wills’ history. Barile has also written about the Crockett family, the first country and western performing family in California, also famous for appearances on local radio, film, and live performance.

Don Fischer

Don Fischer has worked in radio on and off since 1972. His broadcast career began at KOLI, Coalinga, and took him to San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles and eventually to Fresno. In 1980, he teamed with former college radio friend, Dean Opperman to launch the Breakfast Club at the newly licensed KKDJ. That show ran for 14 years, and during most of the 1980’s was Fresno radio’s highest rated morning music and personality show. During his career, Mr. Fischer was a successful program director at both KZOZ in San Luis Obispo and KKDJ in Fresno. His appreciation for country music occurred as a teenager in Buffalo, New York at a regular babysitting gig for neighbors who had a comprehensive collection of vintage country and western records. "They found out I had worn out the grooves on their collection and they fired me but the seeds were sown," he says. In 1975 he began the Lone Star Show on campus station KCPR in San Luis Obispo, programming classic country along with the outlaw and progressive sounds of the 1970’s. It quickly became a huge success and lasted until late 1978 when he moved to an on-air position at KNAC in Los Angeles.

The idea for the Fresno Barn Dance radio show, then a half-hour devoted to western swing and progressive country western, was born in 1982 at the Bar LE Western Swing Rancho, north of Fowler, CA. Don and Steve, listening to old Bob Wills LP’s, decided to develop a show that would the wave of growing interest in the music of Asleep at the Wheel, The Original Texas Playboys, Cowboy Jazz, and others. In the half-hour format, the show worked nicely, and first appeared on KFSR at 5:30 on Saturday evenings. The show moved to Saturday mornings, and later to KVPR, appearing just before "Prairie Home Companion." During the 1990’s, Don and Steve were directors of the Fresno Free College Foundation, owners’ and operators of KFCF 88.1 FM, where their show, The Fresno Barn Dance, Western Swing Extravaganza, aired. At the same time, they were producers and directors of the "William Saroyan Radio Project," and "The San Benito Street Radio Players," producing over a dozen William Saroyan plays for radio in ten years. In 2002, Don and Steve returned to KFSR to host the new National BIG Fresno Barn Dance, two hours of Old-time Country, Western Swing, and Honky-Tonk music.

Today, both Barile and Fischer bring a vast knowledge of music to their show, drawing on many years of experience and familiarity with musical genres. Barile is well versed on the subject of western swing music, and has written extensively about its beginnings and history in Fresno. Fischer continues to immerse himself in honky tonk as well as early Rock-a-Billy and Rock and Roll music. He is a connoisseur of the Southern California country rock scene of the late sixties and seventies as well. Fischer can also be heard on KFSR Wednesday nights from 6pm-9pm where he plays an eclectic mix of contemporary music from rock to jazzy electronica on the program fittingly titled Through the Listening Glass. Between the two of them, there is more radio experience than they’d like to count.