My favorite DJ from my mis-spent youth (Pete Fornatale) died recently - and whose passing was noted by fans and musicians alike. Follow me after the jump ....
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Coming-of-age in the NY metro area during the very-late 60's and the 1970's: we had a major radio station that - by virtue not only of its location in the largest city in the US, but also its eclectic playlist - brought the world of rock, blues, folk, jazz-rock and other popular music (as played by wonderful DJ's) to our ears.
WNEW was not the only one; Boston-area residents had
Charles Laquidara and the citizens of the Bay Area had
Tom Donohue who brought you music in this non-corporate way. Those of you who are contemporaries of mine probably had yours where you grew up, too: as a 1965 ruling by the FCC (forbidding FM stations from simulcasting a co-owned AM station) forced them to develop their own formats ... which opened the door for FM radio to develop its own sound.
And WNEW had some real on-air personas, people who seemed larger-than-life. I wrote one of my weekly Cheers & Jeers profiles on the late Scott Muni who had a syndicated radio program that got some airplay nationwide. They also had Alison Steele - known as "The Night Bird" who sent many a young boy's hormones fluttering - and other DJ's with one-name-only such as Rosko and Zacherly. Their on-air personas were not as out-there as, say, Dr. Demento or Wolfman Jack ... but they seemed other-wordly, people you looked up to.
Not so Pete Fornatale - who sounded (for all the world) like someone speaking across the table at a coffee shop to you, not at you. Unlike Scott Muni's authoritative baritone voice (which you could hear on Rolaids commercials), Pete didn't have a particularly radio-friendly voice (it was downright nasal, in fact). Here are some samples of his voice at these links - listening to them: in a later era, I doubt he'd ever be hired.
But fortunately for him (and myself) he was in the right place at the right time, and he explained his music selections with care: taking the time to describe them yet never talking down to you. Unless you grew up in the region you probably never heard him ... but if you liked this style of music, I wish you could have. Even when doing commercials: I still recall his describing a local auto leasing company as if he used their products or services personally.
Pete championed bands such as Buffalo Springfield and Poco, and conducted one of the first US interviews with Elton John. He also promoted the Beach Boys during a major lull in their career by bringing out a surfboard to introduce them at Carnegie Hall - which they noted on-stage by dedicating a song from their new album to him at a recent NYC show after his death. He also promoted folksingers such as John Gorka and Christine Lavin - and as Shawn Colvin noted, "Pete helped pave the way for so many of us. He was a rare guy in radio then."
Pete was born in the Bronx in 1945 and as a sophomore became a radio DJ at Fordham University - creating a 1964 program called "Campus Caravan", WFUV’s first rock and roll show, at a time when rock music was presented mostly as Top 40.
After graduation in 1967 he won an audition at WNEW but as he says, "I just blew it". He was placed in a studio opposite one of WNEW-AM's stalwart DJ's Ted Brown (of big band, Sinatra and ballads fame) ... and proceeded to play records at the wrong speed and rushed his voice. Today, it'd be hard to imagine someone getting a second chance at such a major station - but the program director told him to hone his skills and try again ... which he did two years later. Prophetically, he debuted just before the original Woodstock festival, and read live promos for the festival on-air.
He often played songs with a pattern, curious as to whether his listeners (which he divided into "active" and "passive" categories) would pick-up on it. Tellingly, his style made him a choice to host music programs on the NYC public TV station Channel 13.
If you're like me, you probably have a memory of when your music wasn't the same anymore. For Pete, it was the changing nature of FM radio - switching from a free-ranging format to a tight playlist - that led him to leave a rapidly-changing WNEW in 1979 (today, the station no longer even exists).
Nowadays, many radio stations are remotely programmed, with no local announcers. And so in a very real sense, this essay isn't simply a requiem for one DJ: it's for a way of life, one in which your old favorite radio personalities probably have fallen on hard times, too.
In 1982, Pete turned to hosting a weekly radio program where - due to his experience and name recognition - he was allowed to write his own ticket. Mixed Bag combined an ever-changing mix of music, along with relaxed interviews.
Here along the Vermont/New Hampshire border, we had a wonderful radio station called WKXE that had a college station's soul, a public radio professionalism yet local news of a commercial station. Obviously, it couldn't last (dying in the 1990's) but one DJ named Steve Niederhauser had his Sunday Morning Program which had Pete Fornatale's sensibility (albeit without the interviews).
And talk about coming full-circle: besides working on Sirius XM radio (along with many of his old WNEW compatriots, interestingly) Pete Fornatale began hosting Mixed Bag in 2001 on ..... WFUV radio at Fordham University - where the school administration welcomed him with open arms. Maybe you can come home again?
Besides his radio work, Pete Fornatale also wrote books: The Story of Rock 'n Roll from 1987, All You Need is Love - and 99 Other Life Lessons" from 2003, Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends from 2007 - which led Art Garfunkel to say "Pete, I knew you were paying close attention all of those years, but I didn't realize you were taking notes!” - and also Back to the Garden from 2009 - his book of interviews from those who performed at Woodstock, which is when he made his major-radio station debut. And he just completed work on a book about the Rolling Stones entitled 50 Licks which, when released this November: will be a fine capstone to his career.
He was also involved with a cause: the late Harry Chapin was a friend of his and Fornatale said that his song Circle was a great description of his career. In 1975, Chapin formed an organization called Why Hunger - along with a former priest who left the ministry to devote himself full-time to the cause named Bill Ayres (no, not the 60's revolutionary) and that organization is now honoring Pete in its fundraising.
Pete Fornatale suffered a brain hemorrhage on April 15th and died eleven days later at age 66. He received the Armstrong Excellence in Broadcasting award in 1983 and just this past February received the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) Media and Entertainment Excellence Award in Broadcasting.
Two tributes to him stand out, and one comes from Paul Simon:
"It’s a very sad day for radio. New York has lost one of its most acclaimed and wonderful radio personalities. He did great interviews. He really knew his era and his music. Very sad, he will be missed."
The other comes from the Reverend Joseph McShane, the president of Fordham University:
"If you heard a thoughtful opinion on the state of rock and roll, Pete Fornatale was saying it. If you heard a hot musician talking on the radio, Pete Fornatale was doing the interview. If you heard a new song on the air, Pete Fornatale was playing it. In many ways he was the voice of a generation—of several generations—and we will not see his like again. If they have FM radio in heaven, they’re listening to Pete right now."
One of the bands that Pete Fornatale championed was Poco - for which I recall his writing the liner notes for its 1971 album Deliverin' and the present-day band members certainly recall (and appreciated) his efforts. Pete later said about the nexus of folk-rock and country-rock - "Even though the Eagles became the most successful commercial group doing country rock music that emerged in the early 70's .... without Poco, there’s no Eagles.”
Richie Furay was one of the founding members of Poco, as well as Buffalo Springfield, and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band in addition to his own Richie Furay Band. Today he is a minister in Colorado, but on occasion still takes time out to tour (and was part of the recent Buffalo Springfield reunion shows). Here is a sample of what he wrote on his website:
Pete and I met through music and I can say without any hesitation, because of him: Poco had an opportunity to be heard in the Northeast. Pete loved music; he loved Poco and it meant so much for me to know that "someone got it" and wasn’t intimidated to say so when our music was first introduced. Our friendship would grow over the years and certainly a testimony to that is: he would write the liner notes to three albums I was a part of (two Poco albums and most recently my solo album called "Alive").
And after talking about their recent meet-ups (as Furay says he always tried to do when he was in New York) he concludes with the title of one of Poco's most popular songs, which seems a fitting way to end this profile (emphasis added): "It was and is a Good Feeling to Know ... Pete Fornatale, my friend".
When I need good loving
I always come home to you
You freed my lifetime of the blues
Yes, I got that old-time feeling
Burning deep inside my soul
And I am yours...baby I'm yours
And it's a good feeling to know
Yes, it's a good feeling to know
Yes, it's a good feeling to know
Somebody loves you.
Now, on to Top Comments:
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From Siri:
In the front-page story by Meteor Blades - about the billionaire who may trot out Jeremiah Wright to convince voters who 'aren't ready to hate' Obama yet .... Dallasdoc starts a thread with a great comment .... that evolves into the perfect setup for blue aardvark to slam it into my nomination for a top comment (thread) today.
And from
Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by bobswern about the naked short-selling that Goldman Sachs and Bank of America that Matt Tiabbi has accused them of - Pescadaro Bill wrote that it seemed grotesque to read reports describing how there have "already been casualties" in this latest Wall Street debacle ... when no one has been injured or killed.
And in the front-page story about the latest criminal program-related activities by James O'Keefe III - a puzzled NMRed is (perhaps) too genteel to ask the question "When the hell is his parole officer going to do something?"
Next: yesterday's Top Photos (as compiled by Jotter each day) - click on the photo to see the story behind it.
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
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