By gordon (24.247.195.133) on Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 10:37 pm:

I always enjoyed working with the soulful Alto Saxophonist Eli Fontaine over at United Sound. He was Don Davis's partner. I do not see much about Eli on this website but I always felt he was one of the originators of the soulful Motown sax solo. Eli was a producer, contractor and studio musician. I played trumpet on many many dates with him and he also called me for dates as a contractor. He passed away quite a few years ago.

He was a very cool guy.
All the best,
Gordon Stump, Detroit Studio Trumpter '70-'85

By acooolcat (61.58.180.141) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 02:03 am:

I think Eli was Darrell Banks's road manager for a while. Eli was involved in many sessions in Detroit during the 60s.
At first I thought that the sax player behind Johnnie Mae (see main article) might have been Eli, but it isn't.
Graham

By Dennis Coffey (64.12.97.7) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 10:13 am:

Hello. I did a lot of sessions for Eli and Don Davis at United Sounds like the Dramatics and Johnny Taylor. He was disappointed in the end when Don moved on to other things. Eli was a great horn player and funny guy. I think Eli and Bongo Eddie were the two funniest jokesters around. Eli used to sit in me when I worked with Lyman Woodard and Melvin Davis.

By Ralph (209.240.198.62) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 10:16 am:

I always thought Eli was so cool. He was known simply as Fontaine.

By gordon (24.247.198.157) on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - 11:12 pm:

Hey Dennis,

Yea, Johnny Allen did the horn charts for the Dramatics. They did not always list the horns and strings by name in those days. Billy Horner and I did most of the Dramatics trumpet work at United sound for Johhny. The gold signles were up on the wall upstairs. I just heard a lot of the big orchestra albums we did for Michael are being re-boxed. Does Theodore know about t

By Eli (141.151.59.40) on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - 11:40 pm:

With a name like Eli, he's got to be good!!!

By Dennis Coffey (152.163.252.68) on Thursday, July 24, 2003 - 07:34 am:

Hi Gordon. I will mention it to Mike when I talk to him this week. I think Armen has given Ace Records permission to release some of our Westbound material.

By BankHouseDave (195.93.50.10) on Thursday, July 24, 2003 - 04:32 pm:

Eli was the man that kicked off What's Going On. He was also on the first Motown Revue in Europe. If you hear the Motortown Revue in Paris he does an extended solo on Too Many Fish with Earl and the band. He was a mean alto player.