Karl Hendricks, who would name his record store Sound Cat, was himself a sound cat in so many ways.

Not only was he a respected indie-rock musician nationally and savior of one of Pittsburgh’s cherished record stores, the thoughtful and soft-spoken Mr. Hendricks was a fiction writer, an English instructor at the University of Pittsburgh and a devoted family man.

After a three-year battle with oral cancer, he died Saturday at his Bloomfield home at 46.

Mr. Hendricks grew up in McKeesport, initiated with the usual young teen bands like Def Leppard and Quiet Riot in the early ’80s. By the time he walked into Jim’s Records in Bloomfield in 1984, when he was 14, his tastes had shifted toward emerging punk/indie groups like Husker Du and The Minutemen.

In the summer of ‘88 he started writing his own songs, and by that fall, he had cut a solo cassette on a four-track recorder in his bedroom called "Jolly Doom," described as "Bob Dylan meets Bob Mould."

The next spring, during his freshman year at Pitt, he went from Jim’s Records regular to Jim’s employee.

“I hired Karl when he was a teenager,” said former owner James Spitznagel. “His mom had to drive him to work! Karl was a dependable, smart and good-humored employee. He was a sponge for every type of music...a real fan-boy and that made working with him very enjoyable.”

That same year, 1989, Mr. Hendricks formed the noise-rock trio Sludgehammer. When it broke up, in addition to playing bass in Thee Speaking Canaries, he launched the Karl Hendricks Trio in 1991, putting the emphasis on his wry, heartbreaking and very rocking love songs.

The KHT’s 1992 debut "Buick Electra," and follow-ups “Misery and Women” and “A Gesture of Kindness,” won them a contract with the prestigious label Merge for fifth album, "For a While, It Was Funny."

“The songs were pouring out of him,” recalled Tom Hoffman, the early ‘90s KHT drummer. “He had this long break-up that produced about four albums. It was an epic burst of songwriting.”

The songs came to him fully fleshed out.

“It was amazing to record with Karl because he knew exactly what he wanted,” Mr. Hoffman said. “There was no sitting there wondering what to do. He had the whole arrangement for the record in his head, and he would knock it out.”

The three Merge albums drew rave reviews and put them on the road with the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel and Superchunk, playing such historic venues as the Whisky A-Go-Go in Los Angeles and the Fillmore West in San Francisco.

He was working at Jim’s Records on the August day in 1992 when nursing student Megan Balog came in looking for a Pavement album. They hit it off right away, and one of their first dates was seeing Sonic Youth at Metropol.

Their first daughter, Maeve, was born in 1995, in the middle of the Merge years, and despite the success of his band, he told the P-G in 2012, “I think that very early on, I understood that playing music was not going to be my No. 1 priority -- more like third or fourth.”

“As a father, he was very devoted, very caring, very attentive...and fun,” Ms. Balog said. “He brought so much beauty into our lives with his music.”

To stay close to home, he became more involved in the store, becoming the buyer when it changed hands to Paul’s CDs. In 1998, the same year he released "Declare Your Weapons," his second album on Merge, he continued his studies at Pitt, taking writing classes with noted professors Chuck Kinder and Lee Gutkind, who steered him toward fiction and creative nonfiction.

“His songwriting and lyric writing were always top-notch, and his short stories were also incredible,” said Jake Leger, another KHT drummer. “They reminded me of Haruki Murakami or Raymond Carver.”

Now a father of two, with second daughter Nell, Mr. Hendricks earned an M.F.A. in English in 2006 and began teaching composition and fiction while still working at Paul’s. When Paul Olszewski decided in 2011 to sell the store due to slumping CD sales, Mr. Hendricks took a leap of faith and bought it, rechristening it as Sound Cat.

“The fact that he stuck with the shop for all those years and then became its owner is not only cool, but inspiring,” Mr. Spitznagel said.

Within a year, there was a ninth Karl Hendricks Trio album, “The Adult Section,” to add to the stock. The store became a family business, with both daughters working there.

Then, in early 2014, he was hit with the cancer diagnosis and had to cut back on everything to care for his health. Bands from the indie scene rallied in support, holding benefit concerts to help with his medical expenses. With his prognosis looking more bleak, in August he sold the store to a longtime customer who named it Juke Records. 

Dave Martin, who worked with Mr. Hendricks at Jim’s before moving to New York for a job at the label Matador, was a lifelong friend. He recalls thinking when he first met him, “That quiet guy makes music?!

“He was so quiet, but fantastic to be around. There was so much in his writing, but it was not like something that would come out in a conversation. You would draw things out of him and it was like the funnest game anyone could play. When I look back at working with him at Jim’s, it was some of the happiest times of my life. ”

Mr. Hendricks is survived by wife Megan and daughters Maeve and Nell, of Bloomfield; and father William A. Hendricks, of Fox Chapel. No memorial has been planned.

Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com; 412-263-2576. Twitter: @scottmervis_pg

First Published: January 21, 2017, 6:00 p.m.