Omaha Public Radio
KIOS Music
Music around the clock. Jazz and blues, classical and Americana, ambient, Latin and soul, and the music shows made here in Omaha.
How to listen on kios.org
The player sits at the top of every page on this site. Switching to the music stream takes two clicks, and it stays there while you read.
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1
Find the player bar at the top of any page
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Open All Streams, then choose KIOS Music
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The bar now reads KIOS Music, and follows you around the site
A history of curated music at KIOS
On the air since 1969
Omaha Public Radio has been choosing music by hand, record by record, for decades. Here is some of what was playing along the way, and who plays it here now.
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1969
A loud year to be born into
KIOS signs on September 15, from a curriculum broadcasting class in the basement of Omaha Central High School. B.B. King had recorded "The Thrill Is Gone" that June. Miles Davis spent three days that August in a New York studio cutting the sessions that broke jazz open into fusion. Abbey Road arrived eleven days after the station did.
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1971
Soul stops being singles
Marvin Gaye releases What's Going On. Aretha Franklin records Live at Fillmore West. Bill Withers writes "Ain't No Sunshine." The same year, KIOS becomes a charter member of NPR, one of the stations that made the network exist rather than one that joined it later.
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1973
A whole hour, and nothing breaking it up
Music from the Hearts of Space begins as a late-night program on KPFA in Berkeley. Brian Eno records Discreet Music two years later and names the thing ambient in 1978, saying later that all he did was give it a name. The stream carries the Hearts of Space hour, Ambiology out of Omaha, and Blue Hour Radio.
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1975
Born to Run, Red Headed Stranger, and a move across town
Springsteen, Willie Nelson and Bob Marley's Live! all land in one year. That October KIOS moves into converted music classrooms in the former Omaha Technical High School, and has broadcast from that building ever since. The reason that matters shows up thirteen years later.
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1982
Thriller, Midnight Love and "The Message"
Three records in one year that the soul and funk hours are still built out of. Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, all released within months of each other.
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1988
Tracy Chapman, Robert Cray, and a host who came home
Mike Jacobs arrives at KIOS, in the building where he had found the blues as a student at Omaha Technical High School, working back from Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones to the people who taught them. The same year, Afropop Worldwide begins as the first American public radio series devoted to the music of Africa and its diaspora. It airs here on Sundays.
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1992
Chris Cooke signs on
In November, after four years on Omaha radio. He has been talking to the musicians ever since, among them Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Wayne Shorter and Karrin Allyson. Joe Henderson's Lush Life came out that year and is still the kind of record these hours are made of.
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1993
Omaha gets a sound of its own
A label is founded here under the name Lumberjack, takes the name Saddle Creek in 1996, and becomes the flagship of a style critics end up calling the Omaha Sound. The station's Saturday night show carries that name because the city earned it.
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1994
Blues at Sundown begins, October 4
It starts as Blues in the Afternoon and opens with Little Walter's "Juke," cut in Chicago in 1952, the only harmonica instrumental ever to top the rhythm and blues chart. It has opened with "Juke" every week since. Buddy Guy released Slippin' In the same year.
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1996
A year that built the rest of the schedule
The Last Call begins in January and is still running, which makes it one of the longest-running programs on the station. Chris Cooke takes the Tuesday and Thursday jazz hours. Mike Jacobs takes over the music library. Three decisions in twelve months, and all three are still on the air.
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1999
The roots music finally gets a name
Wilco puts out Summerteeth and the Buena Vista Social Club film reaches American theaters. Americana had been a radio format for years with no organization behind it; the Americana Music Association is founded this year, and the word reaches the dictionary in 2011. The stream carries American Routes, Ozark Highlands Radio, The International Americana Music Show, Bluegrass Connection and The Hayride.
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2016
Mundo Latino
Conrad Castañeda begins in February with Latin music past and present, on a Sunday night. It is the year Juan Gabriel died and half of Mexico sang him out. Latin Perspective and The Latin Alternative sit alongside it on the stream.
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2020
The Atomic Hour goes on the air, September 5
Pop and rock cut for a jukebox and a car radio, assembled by hand from the records themselves, a few feet from where this page is written. Sixteen songs in that first hour, Saturdays at eight ever since.
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2023
Ambiology, and a drawing for every hour
An hour of ambient and experimental music to end the week, made in Omaha. Joshua LaBure draws original cover art for every episode, and there is a wall of them on this site.
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2026
KIOS Music, September 15
Fifty-seven years to the day after a school district put a radio station in a high school basement. Every hour of it still curated by Omaha Public Radio. This is the first time it has had room to run all day.
What is on it
Thirty-one programs, eight of them made in Omaha
Jazz every night, with Chris Cooke, Mike Jacobs, John Hill and Jana Lee Ross. Blues at Sundown and Beale Street Caravan. Classical overnight on the Beethoven Network. Americana and bluegrass on American Routes, Ozark Highlands Radio and The Hayride. Ambient on Music from the Hearts of Space, Ambiology and Blue Hour Radio. Latin on Mundo Latino, Latin Perspective and The Latin Alternative. Soul and funk, Indigenous music with Larry K, African music on Afropop Worldwide, and the city's own on The Omaha Sound, The Atomic Hour and The Last Call.
Scroll inside the grid for the overnight hours, and use the arrows for next week. All times Central.