Ron Dante

Ron Dante's name may not ring bells for the average listener, yet his vocals powered a pair of massive late-'60s pop smashes—the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" and the Cuff Links' "Tracy"—while he later served as musical director for Barry Manilow and supplied the singing voice for countless era-defining jingles, among them Coke's memorable "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."

The story began in Staten Island when young Carmine Granito fractured his arm; a physician suggested either sports or an instrument to aid recovery. The Elvis-obsessed preteen picked up guitar and soon joined a local doo-wop outfit called the Persuaders. At fifteen, the teenager—now billing himself professionally as Ron Dante—moved to Manhattan seeking an entry into the record industry. After several unsuccessful attempts, he landed work as a demo vocalist for Don Kirshner's Aldon Music. His debut single under the name Ronnie Dante, "Little Lollipop," appeared on the Almot label in 1964 but failed to register. The follow-up, the novelty number "Don't Stand Up in a Canoe," fared no better. In an early sign of things to come, however, he scored a hit that same year as the uncredited voice behind the Detergents' "Leader of the Pack" parody "Leader of the Laundromat." Subsequent years found him penning material for Bobby Darin's publishing firm and issuing further singles that barely dented the charts.

Everything shifted in 1968 when an audition for a Don Kirshner and Jeff Barry project secured him the lead vocal slot. The group was the Archies; their first release, "Bang-Shang-A-Lang," became a hit, yet the next single established a signature sound. "Sugar, Sugar" ignited the bubblegum style and climbed to number one. The Archies project ran a few more years, during which chart success waned while Dante absorbed production techniques, ultimately overseeing their last album, 1971's This Is Love. In that period he also collaborated with Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss on the 1969 smash "Tracy," credited to the Cuff Links.

His own debut LP, Ron Dante Brings You Up, arrived in 1970 with Jeff Barry at the helm and Dante sharing songwriting duties on most tracks; it failed to gain traction. He resumed issuing standalone singles under his own and alternate names while voicing another animated act, the Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. Commercial work filled much of his schedule, supplying vocals for Pepsi, McDonald's, and other campaigns, including the celebrated Coke spot "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." At one such session he encountered Barry Manilow, then Bette Midler's pianist and a fellow jingle composer. The pair began cutting demos of Manilow's material, and their efforts culminated in 1974 when "Mandy" launched the singer's stardom. Dante assumed the role of Manilow's musical director and producer throughout the decade. Concurrently he issued singles under his own name and various aliases—Bo Cooper and Ronnie & the Dirt Riders among them—while delivering a disco version of "Sugar, Sugar" in 1975. He further embraced the disco trend with the late-'70s ensemble Dante's Inferno, which featured shared vocals from Dante, Toni Lund, and Monica Burruss.

Around the same time he ventured beyond music, producing Broadway shows and earning Tonys for 1978's Ain't Misbehavin' and 1980's Children of a Lesser God. He also served as publisher of The Paris Review for six years beginning in 1978 after becoming neighbors with founder George Plimpton. Another solo effort, Street Angel, surfaced in 1981, and he produced projects for Irene Cara and Barry Manilow, yet he then stepped away from new releases for an extended stretch. Not until the late '90s did he resume recording, issuing a sequence of covers and originals: California Nights in 1997, Favorites in 1999, and Saturday Night Blast in 2004. Shortly afterward he reactivated the Archies name, recruiting Danielle van Zyl and Kelly-Lynn as Betty and Veronica, and delivered The Archies Christmas Party on the Fuel 2000 label in 2008. Having acquired the rights to the Archies catalog, he supervised the CD reissues of the group's original albums. Live performances continued, and in 2016 he oversaw two archival releases: a CD box set reproducing the original artwork of all the Archies albums and Anthology, a double-disc retrospective spanning his varied career.