Monte Belmonte Gives Voice to the Community
Written by Melissa Karen Sances
Photos by Nikki Gardner
Published in Northampton Living (February 2024)
Monte Belmonte has a great fake laugh. Ha-ha! “It sounds like a record skipping,” observes his 10-year-old, Pax. We’re at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls, where the longtime, bigtime radio personality and his family have been instructed to ham it up for the camera. On cue, Pax giggles infectiously. Monte’s wife Melissa, his 16-year-old Enzo and his 19-year-old Atticus are much quieter laughers, though all the kids are naturals onstage. But while Monte made a name for himself on-air at Northampton’s WRSI “The River,” he never had to contend with the camera. He actually hates having his picture taken. But he loves giving voice to the community.
Now the cohost of New England Public Media’s “The Fabulous 413,” Monte focuses on life in western Massachusetts. “We’re not trying to be a national show, we’re not trying to be the number-one podcast in the world,” he explains. “We’re literally dialing down to these four counties because they’re so rich. Their stories deserve to be told. That’s how a community gets built.”
Before he met Melissa in the late ‘90s, the 413 wasn’t even on Monte’s radar. In fact, he wasn’t even called “Monte.” He was a teenager named Christopher when he was introduced to his future wife. They didn’t start dating until they were both students at Gordon College, where Monte was studying theology … until he changed his mind. “So my girlfriend’s mother at the time, now my mother-in-law, was like, ‘Well, you like music and you’re pretty good at talking, so maybe you should be on the radio.’ And I was like, ‘Maybe I should be on the radio!’”
It wasn’t the first time someone had noticed his way with words. At Gordon, he’d befriended Pete Holmes, now a nationally recognized comedian, who performed in the school’s improv troupe, The Sweaty-Toothed Madmen. At the time, future Monte was an aspiring rock star. “Your bands are pretty good,” Holmes told him. “But you know what? You’re funny.” So Monte pursued improv and, in a way, his first act was to get on the radio. He pretended he needed a college internship and applied to WXRV, Boston’s independent station known as “The River.” By then it was November 2000, while Al Gore faced George W. Bush in an election so close it took a month to call. One day, he did a spot-on impression of Gore while he was pulling CDs for the radio host. “Do that on the air,” the host told him, and suddenly “Intern Al Gore” was getting play on a major station.
After Monte was hired as a part-time deejay, Melissa received a fellowship to UMass-Amherst. “We can’t go there,” he told her. “That’s a desolate wasteland.” She recruited an artsy friend to show them around Northampton, and he just happened to walk by WRSI, a local station also called “The River.” His street cred got him hired, and one of his first mentors was the now-famous political commentator Rachel Maddow.
“Monte” came to be while he began working on The River’s country station, where it was par for the course to have a country-inspired moniker. Holmes had often called him “Montese,” a play on “The Maltese Falcon.” The next logical step was “Monte.”
For 17 years, Monte built his platform at the local The River, where he was known for his lightning-fast quips and his ever-deepening love for the community. He pitched fundraisers like the annual Monte’s March, now the March for the Food Bank, a food drive centered on his two-day journey pushing a shopping cart from Springfield to Greenfield. “The first couple marches it was literally just me and somebody driving a station vehicle, with me calling into the station the whole way,” he says. “But then it just began to build and build.” In 2010, Congressman Jim McGovern became a regular, and this year Governor Maura Healey trekked the last 3 miles. To date, the 2023 march has raised half a million dollars for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.
Since Monte made the transition to public radio at the end of 2022, he has continued to hone his craft and his focus on community. “Champagne tastes so good because of the soil of Champagne,” he explains. “It’s a reflection of its community, of its place. “Radio should be a reflection of its place.”
One of Monte’s favorite places, besides NEPM and the Shea Theater, is Rock Dam, where we started the day with his family. It was drizzly on the banks of the river – “the ‘river,’” Atticus clarified, “not ‘The River’” – and the family couldn’t have been happier, trying out kung fu moves and fake laughing through the rain. Monte’s laugh was always the loudest, which is ironic because he is the real deal. If radio is an authentic medium that reflects on community, then he is the thoughtful amplifier for the place he calls home.
