From The Archies to Ain't Misbehavin'

Birthday salute to Ron Dante, singer and producer extraordinaire

Happy Birthday to my friend Ron Dante. He is the musical and vocal anchor of The Archies, and Ron’s voice can be heard on famous jingles, with other bands (The Cuff-Links), and on numerous musical cartoons (such as “Spiderman: From Beyond the Grave”). Aside from that, Ron is a wonderful singer-songwriter and has produced Pat Benatar, Cher, and nine of Barry Manilow’s hit albums.

On Broadway, Ron won two Tony Awards for producing “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Children of a Lesser God.”

That said, Ron is The Wizard of Bubblegum Music—songs that burst out and get people hooked. Over the years I’ve grown to appreciate the crafting that goes into making these “ear candy” recordings.

Here we are in the studio (Henderson NV 2010), recording tracks for Steve Syatt (man on far right), creator of the popular Shushybye children's music series. The principals were (L-R) producer/singer-songwriter Ron Dante (Archies, Cher, etc.), Davy Jones (Monkees), and legendary crooner Steve Lawrence--still going strong in his 80s—Ron had recently produced a new recording for Steve (I had a great chat with Steve about his cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" on the LOUNGAPALOOZA CD).

Davy Jones spoke highly of Ron, and one of Davy’s last singles was “Amore,” a track written by Chris Andrews and produced by Ron (we i.e. Davy Jones Band performed it often

Ron would pop up at our shows, and we were happy to do this (!) song whenever we could:

(Monkees trivia: It’s well-known that Don Kirshner create The Archies out of anger because The Monkees had fired him as a producer; The Monkees also passed on first dibs to record “Sugar Sugar”)

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Meanwhile, HB RD and thank you for bringing hours of joy to screen and stage

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#rondante #davyjones #archies #monkees #birthday #johnnyjblair #cher #patbenatar #barrymanilow