Pete, We Hardly Knew Ye

Pete Fornatale died today in New York City. He was a radio personality on the New York
City music scene from the time he was in college until his last Mixed Bag radio
show on WFUV FM on April 14th. You can read about Pete and his accomplishments at http://www.wfuv.org/blog/pete-fornatale-1945-2012.

Pete had a profound influence on my life as a musician. He got a copy of my first record, Home to the Heart, from his friend Dick Cerri in Washington, DC and started to play a few of the songs on his weekly Mixed Bag show when it was on WNEW-FM, the biggest rock station in NYC back in 1983.
That led me to bookings in folk clubs in Greenwich Village. On one of my trips to NYC, Pete asked me to come by the studio and do a live interview with him. I played three songs and he asked me great,
insightful questions. After the interview, we had lunch together at the AutoMatt Restaurant around the corner from the WNEW studio. He was warm and down to earth and I felt like the luckiest guy on earth that day.

When I put out my second record and moved from Los Angeles to Connecticut for graduate school, Pete asked if I would volunteer to help out with his Hungerthon telecast on New Year’s Night 1986. Would I ever! He broadcast live from the lobby of the United Nations building for 24 hours straight to raise money for World Hunger Year, a non-profit organization founded by Harry Chapin and carried
on by Pete and Bill Ayres after Chapin’s untimely death.

There I was in the lobby of the UN Building at 1:30 a.m. with no crowd to listen and respond to – just the millions of people I imagined who were listening to their radios around the NYC metro area. I got to the UN Building about 30 minutes early and was delighted to learn that I would be going on just after one of my heroes, Jesse Colin Young (“Get Together”). I was just as delighted to see one of my other heroes, Marshall Crenshaw (“Cynical Girl”) walk into the lobby while I was singing to take the spot after mine. For a kid from Lima, Ohio, I was in pretty tall cotton between these two giants.

That was the way Pete planned it, I’m sure. Though he was on a first-name basis with the very biggest of singers and songwriters, he was always promoting up-and-comers like me. Whether he was interviewing Paul Simon or a nervous first-timer like me, he never talked up or down to the performer. He was always on the level with his guests and with his audiences. Sure, he was a fan of the music, but he did not pander to his heroes or try to trick them into saying something they’d later regret. He was that great friend who was knowledgeable about music. Everyone who listened to
his shows must have felt a little bit closer to the lightning in a bottle that causes all of the music to be created and heard.

Pete had written a couple of great books about his experiences, including one about his insights from backstage at the Woodstock Festival. The last time I talked with Pete on the phone, sometime in 2011, he told me he’d send me an autographed copy of the book. So he did. I can’t bear the thought of looking for it tonight for fear that I loaned it to someone forgotten and will never see it
again.

I can’t help but think that Pete had a lot more to say on the air and on the pages of books that will never be written. Fortunately we can listen to his Mixed Bag shows in the WFUV archives. And we can
all honor the people who have redirected our lives by doing the best we can with the gifts we’ve been given.

Comments

[Seleen Collins]

Sounds like Pete was stellar in his own right. Thanks for letting us learn something from him, too.