If you’ve been to the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards Presentation in recent years, you’ve heard the familiar voice of Katy Daley announcing nominees and narrating parts of the show. This year Katy, a long-time radio host and producer with WAMU and Bluegrass Country, moved from the microphone to the spotlight, as she was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
Pat Meloon Brown is a native Washingtonian who grew up on military bases in the far east and became an avid bluegrass fan listening to “Rice Paddy Round-up” on Armed Forces Radio. She was living and working in Washington when Gary Henderson’s Saturday morning show on WAMU became the voice of bluegrass in the nation’s capital. There were lots of bands playing in the DC area, and in 1972 Pat volunteered to compile and announce concerts, festival and club dates that she read on Gary’s show as the Bluegrass Bulletin Board. She took the name “Katy Daley” from the Stanley Brothers song as her radio persona and launched a storied career in bluegrass broadcasting.
Bluegrass programming on WAMU was wildly popular and as it expanded Katy took over an evening spot from 10 to midnight and later an afternoon drive-time show alternating with Henderson and Jerry Gray. She was part of an active community of bluegrass musicians and fans who volunteered at station fundraisers and events, encouraging involvement and support for WAMU and public radio. She inspired fans to provide programming content, sharing their personal record collections and even learning how to run a control board and do on-air work, including part-time hosting of an all-night bluegrass show.
In 1979 Katy moved to Washington’s commercial country station, WMZQ-AM/FM. In her 18 years with that station she worked several different jobs: overnight DJ, on-air program director of the AM station, member of the morning team, and public affairs director. In 1991 her documentary on Arlington National Cemetery received Honorable Mention at the International Radio Festival of New York and in 1994 she won the Achievement in Radio (AIR) award for Best Mid-Length Interview.
Katy returned to Bluegrass Country in 2006 when WAMU started the 24-hour online channel bluegrasscountry.org, and she took over the weekday morning drive time slot in 2007. After retiring from that spot when WAMU spun off Bluegrass Country in 2017, she remained active writing a series of “Q&A with Katy Daley” interviews for Bluegrass Today, and along with Howard Parker launching the Bluegrass Stories podcast.
Katy holds a BA in Communications from The American University. She is a member of IBMA, Friends of Old Time Banjo, and the Capitol Area Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association. She served on the DC Bluegrass Union board of directors and was the first non-performer to receive the DCBU’s Washington Monument Award in 2017.
A graduate of the 2008 IBMA Leadership Bluegrass class, Katy was named IBMA Broadcast Personality of the Year in 2009 and 2011 and received the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2019. She received the 2019 and 2020 IBMA Liner Notes of the Year awards for her contribution to “Epilogue: A Tribute to John Duffy” for Smithsonian Folkways, and as the sole writer for the re-release of “Seldom Scene Recorded Live at the Cellar Door” on Rebel Records.
In 2022 Katy and her husband Bill Brown established the Katy Daley Broadcast Media/Sound Engineering Scholarship, presented each year by the IBMA Foundation to a person planning to study broadcasting or sound engineering at college or in a continuing education program with a bluegrass music focus.
Katy was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony during the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass, September 26 in Raleigh NC. Other 2024 inductees were Alan Munde and Jerry Douglas.