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David Dye, Signing Off

After 25 years with <em>World Cafe</em>, David Dye is signing off as full-time host.
Joe Del Tufo
/
WXPN
After 25 years with World Cafe, David Dye is signing off as full-time host.

Editor's note: Friday marks David Dye's last day as full-time host of World Cafe, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.


I am certainly the luckiest radio host I know. I have come to work each day to find out which of my heroes I am going to talk to next. Even as my last day hosting World Cafe rolls out, I am preparing to interview Aimee Mann and one of the greats, Ray Davies of The Kinks. As Talia Schlanger takes over World Cafe come Monday, that should let you know that I am not disappearing.

For 25 years this has been my world — always with the specter of the next show on the horizon. I won't miss that responsibility. My life is going to be different. I hope it's a little slower: more reading and baseball, less updating my Twitter feed. I look forward to putting on an album just because I want to hear it, not as show prep.

World Cafe will continue as a living, breathing entity — hopefully for 25 more years. The staff is more pumped than ever. Great things are in the wind. I'll be checking in with Ms. Schlanger once in a while. And I will be listening — and I hope you will be too. Radio is nothing without listeners completing the circle. You know, we can feel you out there! The artists and I thank you for 25 years.

—David Dye

P.S.: We turned the tables for my last on-air show as full-time host and had Ari Shapiro from NPR's All Things Considered interview me! Hear the complete conversation in the player above.

Copyright 2021 XPN. To see more, visit XPN.

David Dye is a longtime Philadelphia radio personality whose music enthusiasm has captivated listeners of World Cafe® since 1991. World Cafe is produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania.