If you haven`t already done so, the next time you`re stuck in construction traffic on your way home from work, tune in fine arts WFMT-FM 98.7.
That`s where you`ll find ”Afternoon Program” host Don Tait, who is celebrating his 20th anniversary at the station this year.
He may not give you the traffic, but whether playing Aaron Copland`s Nonet for Strings or reading the news and commercials, Tait`s urbane-but-never-snooty style provides an oasis of serenity amid the insanity of afternoon drive.
While he notes that WFMT program hosts Mel Zellman and Jim Unrath both have 10 years` seniority on him, Tait says two decades at the station is nothing to sneeze at.
”WFMT`s audience is truly made up of really intelligent people who know the arts, who know how to pronounce things. The other day I mispronounced the name of a Rameau opera, and a man listening on cable called me from North Dakota to complain. So, being accepted by our listeners is pretty
gratifying.”
A classical music fan since his childhood in Evanston, Tait`s hobby of record collecting led to his first radio job, on classical music station WNIB in 1965.
When Marty Robinson left WFMT for PBS-TV (Channel 11) in 1972, Tait joined WFMT.
He was the longtime host of WFMT`s ”Collectors Item” program, which featured classical music from the first half of the century drawn from Tait`s personal collection, which includes 30,000 78s. Although the program is on an extended hiatus, it`s still heard worldwide through syndication.
Tait produced several award-winning retrospectives on famous conductors for WFMT, and recently produced ”From Stock to Solti,” a series tracing the history of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through its recordings.
Before becoming the station`s 2-to-6:30 p.m. host a year ago last April replacing Jay Andres, Tait bounced around between shifts as most WFMT announcers do, under the station`s philosophy that the programming rather than the hosts is the station`s main appeal. Still, he accepts that he has become a part of many WFMT listeners` families. It`s something that he does not take lightly.
”George Stone on the old WEFM was a hero of mine,” he said. ”He treated his listeners like intelligent people and never tried to browbeat them. I would listen at home to his voice talking about classical music, and I always had the feeling that he was taking me seriously as a listener. That`s the golden rule of broadcasting: Treat people the way you`d like to be treated.”
Although he acknowledges that WFMT`s much-publicized management shakeups of late have had an impact on listeners, Tait says the station`s original mission remains intact.
”Once in a meeting here I said that to me, WFMT had always been not a group of broadcasters who had decided to play fine arts programming, but a group of people who were nuts about the fine arts who wound up as
broadcasters.”
”The idea of a station dedicating itself to a concept is very important to me. What means the most to me after 20 years here is not so much that I have survived but that we have survived.”
