Lenny Fontana sits in a rare position within American house music. Deeply tied to New York’s club and radio lineage, his story runs from WBLS and Frankie Crocker through Paradise Garage, Studio 54 and decades of global touring, without ever drifting far from the emotional core that first pulled him in.
His new single Stay With Me All Night brings that history into sharp focus. Built around a soaring female vocal and full gospel choir, the track leans into the church-rooted language that has long underpinned his sound, pairing classic house drive with open, heartfelt emotion. It is a record designed to land late in the night, direct and generous in feeling, and rooted in the same tradition that shaped Fontana’s earliest influences.
In this interview, the New York house mainstay reflects on gospel, radio education, Larry Levan’s philosophy, and the realities of longevity, offering a grounded perspective on why emotional records still matter, and why a good song never really dates.
Stay With Me All Night leans heavily into gospel tradition, not just sonically but emotionally. What draws you back to gospel and church-rooted vocals at this point in your career, and what does that language still offer house music today?
You hear it in this record the emotional part in the lyric and the vocal performance. Well I always loved these style songs even from the disco era and the 80s and 90s. I produced this style most of my early career as it felt right to return to it as there is not that many of these type of gospel house music songs around. For me these songs always felt like anthems with the big chorus which is needed today for the younger club land. It’s super cool to make tracks but it can be a challenge to make sophisticated vocal tracks that have this kind of meaning.
You came up in New York under the influence of radio as much as clubs, learning directly from Frankie Crocker at WBLS 107.5. How did that radio education shape your sense of song structure and emotional timing compared to DJs who learned purely in club environments?
Well it was a true lesson listening to the Chief Rocker Frankie Crocker. You have to understand at the time there was very limited radio stations that played an urban R&B format and especially black owned. So Frankie hand picked the selection for his show and as well programmed the station. I never heard James Brown, Philly International and many artists that he helped break in the 1970s. He made you go out and search for music as I was lucky my mom bought a lot of albums at the time and I was able to listen to the music and study it. So when I began my production career I would refer to the music I grew up with and used it as my muse on what I wanted my productions to sound, feel and target. Even today you hear these classic tracks and they are far superior as the musicians are all top shelf and the songs and singers are the tops of the top.
Larry Levan is often referenced as a spiritual rather than technical influence. When you think about his impact on you, is it more about sound, intention, or the way he held space for a room?
It’s everything! His programming taught a generation music that you may not of heard otherwise. When he played at Paradise Garage, he talked through songs for example, if he was upset or angry with his friends he would play Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes “Where Are All My Friends” Now you ask the question about the sound in his club, no matter what you played it sounded amazing as he was equipped with a 5 Way Sound System and that makes you hear particular instruments or sounds you may never heard on a small home system. His club was his living room so the way he approached it every weeks as he was playing for his personal friends. So that means you can do whatever you want and the owner Michael Brody allowed that as the environment was created and handled by them.
His dream was to have the “Loft”that David Mancuso created but he had is personal loft on a grander scale where on a given Saturday night you can have over 2000 people in the club.. it was a huge Dancefloor. I will try to explain this about him, imagine he is playing a brand new song and testing it out and the people are acting funny and walking off the floor because it’s feels disjointed to them. So what he would do is come back and play three or four big records and bring the floor back to mayhem. Then reintroduce the new song again and people may start walking off. Now he gets angry and says right watch this: he plays two big songs this gets everyone in a frenzy and then totally decides to black out the room including the exit signs. Now it’s totally pitch black and plays the song again this time he plays a funny loud witches laugh from Wizard Of Oz over the sound system and this makes the people start to dance to this new record and by the end of the night you are now singing this song. Cause your heard it 7 or 8 times.. That was the kind of power he had and radio programmers and DJs seen it themselves and wanted to do recreate that. A lot of records became huge hits because of his influence and on a given weekend over 5k people heard the new song.
Playing at Studio 54 in the late 80s placed you at a crossroads moment for New York nightlife. How did that era differ from the more underground spaces you were also part of, and what did each teach you about reading a crowd?
When I began working there I worked under Baird Jones the famous club promoter in New York. He had a mixed crowd so that means he had an after work crowd and clubbing crowd. What was expected from me was to play a little more commercial dance and the popular music of the time. So maybe I was playing Soft Cell, Klein&MBO Dirty Talk or Slang Teacher along with Yazz and B52s. As it was predominantly more a white crowd and if you want to make a place like Studio work then they need to drink and keep those bars churning out the cash. So my job was to keep you there as it was a very big club at the same time the original owner Steve Rubell is downtown at his new massive club Palladium so that is where people wanted to be. Studio at this point was passe.. so I was thrilled to be playing at the spot but at the time not realizing later it would be so greatly important in my career.
I learned to read a crowd and make changes when necessary to keep you there the only draw back was by the time I played we had the Clair Brothers Soundsystem which was a loud radio sound. The Richard Long System was gone already but I had my chance to play on it at The Underground when Baird Jones took me there and I could play more house music as we had a mixture of Latino and black crowd at that space. At the time the system was good but not as great as Palladium and Garage but if you were to have that room today it would be far superior to anything out now..
Your DJ career spans local black-light parties like the Hideaway Underground through to international touring in the 90s. Did travelling globally change how you understood New York house, or did it reinforce its identity for you?
This is hard to translate in the sense that what you do at your home club in your city just may not always work on an international level. There been times in the beginning as I started to travel where I had to modify my programming to make the clubbers around the world enjoy the music I am playing. Back in the beginning there was no world wide social media and you had to be ready to deal with the changes in how people hear music. I seen my other luminaries play in Europe and they would do what they did in NYC and were booed off the stage. I would never want that to happen to me so I could make changes real quick because I always watched the crowd and if I felt something was not working you can be assured I will make them love my next pickings. A lot of times you were hired because of your fame and the promoter may have not really known the music play. It happened to the greatest Frankie Knuckles where he played beautifully and lush. The promoter after 45 minutes asked Frankie to hand it over to the resident who played more techy. It was insult to Frankie but it happens so this reaffirms to me as much you like a certain style sometimes you must modify your set to make it work.
The new single feels unapologetically classic in its arrangement, yet it still works in modern peak-time sets. When you’re producing now, how conscious are you of current DJ tools and systems versus trusting instincts formed decades ago?
You know it’s tuff for me to lose what makes me who I am as the producer / dj. I am always looking to new records for direction and how the sound of the record works and may possibly be new tips where I can borrow and utilize in my productions. I try to implement some of these new techniques into my records and in the process trying not to lose the Lenny Fontana Sound. One thing is for sure I am a DJ first and foremost so I am always on the hunt for that new record and most importantly we have a whole new bunch of clubbers that no nothing about me and what I did 35 plus years ago so it’s giving me a chance to showcase my sound again with a new twist.
House music today often separates soulful records from functional club tracks. You’ve consistently blurred that line. Do you think emotional uplift still has a place in peak-time moments, or has club culture become more guarded about vulnerability?
I believe a good record is a good record where the current times have now genre every release into sub genres. I approach DJing and producing the same way. Never thinking a techno record, Afro house or deep record being played or not played because of its genre. If I believe it feels good, I always go by what I am hearing not because someone put it in a particular category. I wanted to always create Anthems or sing alongs. I love to see the people singing along to the songs. If I can keep creating that magic I will always try to reach to that every time . The new DJs I find unfortunately go by top 30 in Beatport and are afraid a lot of times to take risks thinking that in there one hour set they will clear the floor. That short DJ set is a problem in its own right because each DJ wants to stand out and sometimes does not have enough time to play that record and take that risk.
After such a long and storied career, what still excites you about making and playing house music in 2026, and what do you feel is misunderstood about longevity in this scene?
The discussions today with fellow DJs is the need for longer sets. This way a dj can really introduce the sound they are working on in the studio or a particular sound they are championing. What excites me today is that I am accepted for my long career in house music and that my new songs are being played by all the DJs young and old. The wonderful part to my job is when I get behind the decks even though I am told that I am a OG, the new generation is enjoying and accepts me for who I am and what I am playing. I can see it on there faces and there response from the Dancefloor. It goes back to what my ethos has always been “A good record is a good record then and now! A good DJ will always deliver no matter what the situation is.
Stay With Me All Night is out now