Rich Conaty’s Radio Friends Repay Their Musical Debt With Interest

Rich Conaty Died December 30, 2016. Read our remembrance: Aloha! Rich Conaty When we turn on the radio, we expect the same voices to be there for us year after year to inform, amuse, and console us. If they have been there any significant time we take them for granted, as we take water coming out of the kitchen tap for granted. When the people on the other side of the microphone suffer setbacks, we take it personally. It’s as if we hear an old friend is suddenly in a bad way. It affects us even more deeply if the person behind the mic is an actual friend. Rich Conaty, host of The Big Broadcast on WFUV-FM in New York, has endured a series of financial and medical setbacks in recent years, and in August he announced that he might have to sell his 1950 Nash Ambassador. Rich has been a car enthusiast even longer than he’s been a radio host, with a particular love of the Nash line of the 1950s. That interest could be said to have been borne of a childhood spent watching the old Adventures of Superman television program, starring George Reeves and Noel Neill, in which Nashes and Nash Ramblers appeared prominently. And while Rich was fully prepared to part with his prized 1950 Nash to pay medical bills and personal expenses, his friends and fans (who number many thousands) would have none of it. His friend Danielle launched a GoFundMe campaign, “Nash versus Cash,” towar