6-12-2012
WFUV-FM in New York announced yesterday that Don McGee (pictured) will become the permanent host of the award-winning program Mixed Bag, which airs every Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. Radio icon Pete Fornatale started the program nearly 30 years ago and hosted it until his death in April. McGee has been the primary guest host for Mixed Bag.
McGee said, ?I know how important Mixed Bag is to so many people. I?m grateful to WFUV for this opportunity, and I thank the show?s many loyal listeners who?ve wished me well. Of course, I?ll always be grateful to Pete Fornatale, to whom I owe so much.?
McGee began his association with Pete Fornatale in 1987 as a producer of Saturday Morning Sixties, another program hosted by Fornatale at WNEW-FM, and was later an associate producer of Mixed Bag. A graduate of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, he is the president of McGee Productions, a media production company.
Soon after its debut as a Sunday morning program on WNEW-FM in December, 1982, Mixed Bag became the
launching pad for a new generation of singer-songwriters, including Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Christine Lavin. Known for his penetrating interviews with artists such as Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen, Fornatale (pictured right) received the Armstrong Award for Excellence in Musical Programming in 1983 and an AFTRA Media and Entertainment Excellence Award in Broadcasting earlier this year. In January, 2000, Fornatale brought Mixed Bag to WFUV (where he worked as a Fordham University undergraduate in the 1960s) in the Saturday 4 to 8 p.m. time slot.
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