DJ Fontana, last survivor of Elvis Presley’s band, is dead
Drummer DJ Fontana, the last surviving member of iconic musician Elvis Presley’s original band, The Blue Moon Boys, has died at the age of 87, his family said on Thursday. Fontana’s son David wrote on Facebook that his father died peacefully in his sleep Wednesday evening.
An inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dominic Joseph Fontana introduced drums to the concoction that became rock ‘n’ roll at a time that popular singers often eschewed percussion entirely. He was a drummer for a radio programme in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, when Presley, performing for country audiences, came in 1954 after performing on the more established, rival show of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
Presley’s guitarist Scotty Moore approached Fontana to join and, in an instant, he became the original rockabilly drummer. “It worked but I’d gotten to thinking it was such a unique sound they had. Why clutter it up with drums and noise?” Fontana told The Washington Post in 1986.
“So I just kind of laid back and stayed out of their way. I think that’s why I got the job,” he said. Fontana was signed to Presley’s band, dubbed The Blue Moon Boys, supplying the heavy, high-energy beats that came to characterise rock ‘n’ roll on their hits, Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog.
But he also knew his place in his band, allowing Elvis to dominate the show as he pounded away in the back during almost nightly shows. Fontana also played drums on Presley’s appearances in 1956 on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Blue Moon Boys broke up in 1958 but Fontana regularly backed up Presley through the 1960s. Late in his life he also played shows for Elvis enthusiasts with Moore, who died in 2016.