He may not be an Okie from Muskogee, but every Saturday for the last 20 years, volunteer disc jockey Mike Trynosky has transformed Connecticut College radio station WCNI (90.9 FM) into southeastern Connecticut’s back porch for real country music.

From noon to three, he keeps the roots of country alive through his home grown radio show “Not Exactly Nashville.” Steadfast and true to the seminal years of country, Trynosky’s focus is on the late 1930s through the early 1960s, a time of phenomenal growth in country music.

He agrees with many who feel that the 1970s began a decline in authenticity as country music songwriters, performers and managers began to chase the money. Occasionally a promising new artist might make the playlist.

Trynosky, 63, spends every Friday evening preparing for the broadcast, though with music always on his mind, it’s really a 24/7 commitment. He lives in East Haddam and works full time as a technical aide at Electric Boat, where he’s been for over 40 years.

Throughout the week, Trynosky develops ideas and unique ways to entertain country music fans, often looking into his own past for ideas.

A lifelong music fan, he listened to his father’s copy of Johnny Horton’s Greatest Hits growing up and never traveled far without a transistor radio. On commercial stations in the 1970s, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen and Asleep At The Wheel, both of whom had country roots, sparked Trynosky’s interest. On a solo cross country trip in 1978, he tuned into a southern commercial country station and heard honky tonker Gary Stewart.

“I was blown away. One of the first things I did when I returned home was track down all his records,” he said.

Off the air he listens to a mixed bag of styles that fall under the country banner: honky tonk, western swing, country Jazz, hillbilly and rockabilly. He also loves Django Reinhardt, French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and Gypsy Jazz.

Trynosky’s radio career began when he helped with a friend’s bluegrass show on WCNI in 1995. Once he earned his radio license, he knew what he wanted to do: take music fans on a journey into the heart of non-commercial country in a way that entertains and educates.

“Every week I celebrate birthdays and pay tribute to many old artists who’ve passed away. I just did a show highlighting the late fiddler Hugh Farr of the Sons of The Pioneers,” he said. “Some of the many others I play are Lefty Frizzell, Melba Montgomery, George Jones, Marty Robbins and Ernest Tubb. I also love Western Swing and play Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys and Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies.”

In addition to birthdays, “Not Exactly Nashville” also celebrates holidays and, believe it or not, celestial milestones of mankind.

While modern country stations play drinking songs just for the sake of the party, Trynosky uses early country to frame meaningful events such as the anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. There’s plenty of material to choose from, including Leroy Preston’s “Fool on a Stool,” “Honky Tonk Haze” by Jim Lauderdale and Dale Watson’s “The Pint of No Return.”

Cinco de Mayo called for celebratory tunes like Los Pinkys’ “El Gorrioncillo Pecho Amarillo,” Flaco Jiminez with Ry Cooder performing “La Feria Polka” and Cornell Hurd’s “Adios to Mexico City.”

Trynosky also presents an annual country Christmas show with holiday tunes. And in a move that deserves at least a nomination to radio’s country music hall of fame, the show marked the anniversary of the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Trynosky spun early country songs of the cosmos such as Ray Anderson & The Homefolks’ “Sputnik & Mutnik,” Carl Sonny Leyland’s “Little Green Men from Outer Space” and “Space Guitar” by Nick Curran & Dave Biller.

I stopped by the station one recent snowy Saturday to find Trynosky featuring Jimmy Day, a steel guitarist inducted into International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1982.

His experience showed as he worked the microphone and control board, setting up song sequences, writing notes and answering the phone. With a smooth radio voice, he educates listeners with little known tidbits of country music history.

WCNI, on the air for 65 years, airs “folk to funk, polka to punk” and also streams through its website wcniradio.org. The college offers no financial support so the station’s volunteers conduct an annual fundraiser that pays the bills, garnering pledges from fans in 20 states.

Their motto “For the love of music” fits Trynosky to a tee. Consider this: almost everything he’s played on “Not Exactly Nashville” for 20 years has come from his personal collection of recordings.

Join him on the back porch at noon on Saturdays. Let the screen door slam and set on the step a spell for a journey through the heart of real country music. You’ll see what he means when he says “It’s my passion. It’s what I love. I’m a lucky man.”

John Steward can be reached at tossinglines@gmail.com