Friday, April 27, 2012
Pete Fornatale died. Pete was one of the group of fine FM DJs during WNEW's brief period as a commercial sort-of free form radio station in the late-Sixties.
I don't remember much about Fornatale during that time except his voice & that he could do interesting sets. I must have listened to him often enough. I was more a fan of Rosko & Alison "The Nightbird" Steele; they were "rappers" in the language of that era, radio hosts who talked about topics other than music & read poetry, & I tuned into them as much for their personalities as for what they played.
By the mid-Seventies, even earlier, I had lost interest in commercial rock FM. I didn't like art rock, progressive rock (prog), or the manufactured soon-to-become "classic" rock of Bad Company. I had limited patience for singer/songwriters like James Taylor. My tastes in music went far beyond rock (the direction of mainstream rock encouraged looking elsewhere), & I was a disgruntled consumer soon to be attracted by "punk" & "new wave."
For a period there it was good to turn on the radio & occasionally hear a live concert of Randy Newman, just him & a piano, when hardly anyone bought his records. Or Elton John before he turned into Captain Fantastic. Or the Allman Brothers (I have soft spot for southern rock). But Richard Neer, another "legendary" FM DJ & now a sports talk radio host, waxes nostalgic about the days when he could play an entire side of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That's why I never listened to Richard Neer. *
Pete Fornatale had a taste of real creative radio freedom early in his career & was actually paid for it, & then had to dance in chains (except for his later WFUV programs at Fordham). Sometimes the chains weren't all that heavy, but no doubt they always chaffed Pete to one extent or another. He was at the mercy of his employers & managers.
* Someone gave me Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes for my birthday; it went back to the record store the next day.Also reminded by someone that there were, in fact, much more adventurous DJs than Fornatale on commercial New York radio, naming Michael Cuscuna as one of them. At WFMU from the beginning I was determined to do a kind of free form not exclusively musical, which meant resisting those regular listeners who complained about too much talking.
I don't remember much about Fornatale during that time except his voice & that he could do interesting sets. I must have listened to him often enough. I was more a fan of Rosko & Alison "The Nightbird" Steele; they were "rappers" in the language of that era, radio hosts who talked about topics other than music & read poetry, & I tuned into them as much for their personalities as for what they played.
By the mid-Seventies, even earlier, I had lost interest in commercial rock FM. I didn't like art rock, progressive rock (prog), or the manufactured soon-to-become "classic" rock of Bad Company. I had limited patience for singer/songwriters like James Taylor. My tastes in music went far beyond rock (the direction of mainstream rock encouraged looking elsewhere), & I was a disgruntled consumer soon to be attracted by "punk" & "new wave."
For a period there it was good to turn on the radio & occasionally hear a live concert of Randy Newman, just him & a piano, when hardly anyone bought his records. Or Elton John before he turned into Captain Fantastic. Or the Allman Brothers (I have soft spot for southern rock). But Richard Neer, another "legendary" FM DJ & now a sports talk radio host, waxes nostalgic about the days when he could play an entire side of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. That's why I never listened to Richard Neer. *
Pete Fornatale had a taste of real creative radio freedom early in his career & was actually paid for it, & then had to dance in chains (except for his later WFUV programs at Fordham). Sometimes the chains weren't all that heavy, but no doubt they always chaffed Pete to one extent or another. He was at the mercy of his employers & managers.
* Someone gave me Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes for my birthday; it went back to the record store the next day.Also reminded by someone that there were, in fact, much more adventurous DJs than Fornatale on commercial New York radio, naming Michael Cuscuna as one of them. At WFMU from the beginning I was determined to do a kind of free form not exclusively musical, which meant resisting those regular listeners who complained about too much talking.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I loved that era of WNEW-FM. Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, Alison Steele. I liked Pete, may he rest in peace.
That era looms so large & yet it was so brief before the money people moved in & quashed it. I was really angered by what happened & stayed angry for a decade until I joined WFMU.
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