Ron Dante's Funhouse
Ron Dante’s Funhouse
By Pat King
You may not know Ron Dante’s face, but there is no doubt that you know his voice.
At the height of his career, the Staten Island native was practically the voice of the 1960s, providing his one-of-a-kind vocals to thousands of American radio and television advertisements for all of the Madison Avenue powerhouses of the day. His voice was synonymous with American aspiration and success. But as his voice was in high demand from brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Budweiser, his biggest hits came from singing such massive #1 hits as “Sugar, Sugar” for the Saturday morning cartoon band The Archies, along with many perfect slices of Pop with other fictional groups such as the Cufflinks, The Chan Clan, and even singing as your favorite neighborhood web slinger, Spider-Man.
After years of being the voice behind the hits, Dante has been stepping out into the spotlight lately as the lead singer of the legendary group The Turtles, for their successful Happy Together Summer tours. But what you are holding in your hands, is the most comprehensive collection of Dante’s work in both the commercial world — at places like Don Kirschner’s Brill Building — as well as his various TV projects. With Ron Dante’s Funhouse, we finally get to know the man who changed our world with his voice. Welcome to Ron Dante’s Funhouse.
This new collection Ron Dante’s Funhouse not only includes The Archie’s huge single “Sugar, Sugar”, but it also includes 17 unreleased songs by The Archies and a treasure trove of commercial and soundtrack work. What was it like going through all of this material?
First of all, it was a delight to have to go back and look at these songs and remember their recording sessions. A lot of the Archies stuff was done very quickly. For each season, we had to do a bunch of songs because they had to do two songs per episode. When I went in to record it, the songs were already written. All I had to do was learn them [during] the session. I remember thinking, “I’m going to make up some great backgrounds for these songs.” Because they were really cool songs, and I was proud to sing them. It’s kind of like going back in time in a time machine and revisiting the feelings you had as you were doing them. I was really working a lot during those years. I was a jingle singer and a record producer. During those years, I was not only doing the Archies songs but I was in the studio every day singing commercials for the top jingle producers in New York City. I would sometimes do four or five sessions a day singing for Budweiser or Dr. Pepper or Coke or Pepsi. In my career, I must have done thousands of commercials which were then made into other thousands of commercials; 30 second spots, 60 second spots. So it was a very interesting time for me to go through all of this stuff and remember how cool it was to be recording my voice on all of these great songs and knowing they were going to be seen on a Saturday morning cartoon show by millions of kids.
You were in high demand back then and doing so much work. Was there anything that you don’t remember recording at all that took you by surprise?
Some of it, but I remember most of the vocals. When you do a vocal, when you sing the lead, it kind of gets ingrained in your brain. You have to concentrate so intensely on making the right sounds [and] putting across the right emotion that goes with it. We did a couple songs, one was called “Mr. Factory” which was a very unusual Archies song because it spoke about the air pollution that is killing people around the world and how we need to stop polluting the air. “Mr. Factory” was very interesting and a couple of the others that I did during those years stayed with me. Some of the songs, I don’t quite remember the sessions, but once I hear the sound of my voice I know what I was going through at the time. Sometimes, I was a little hoarse. Sometimes, I was in great vocal shape. But most of the time, I was in good vocal shape and ready to embrace the song.
With so many people knocking on your door to get that “Ron Dante voice”, when did you first discover that it was something special?
It kind of happened after my first couple of commercials (laughs). My first hit record, I didn’t even sing on it. It was called “Leader of the Laundromat”. Which was a novelty record that was a take off on “The Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri Las, which was a number one record. So these songwriters came up with a song parody like “Weird” Al and my friends and I were called into the studio to do voices on it. I thought I was going to do lead, but I didn’t do lead. I did backgrounds and I did some speaking.
I didn’t know what to feel about my voice back then. I knew I had a good sound. People wanted to record me as a soloist. But when the commercials started, in about 1967-68, just before the Archies broke in late ‘68-‘69, I realized that I was becoming in demand as a jingle singer because I could imitate a lot of the hit records that were on the radio. Jingles and commercials were starting to imitate the hit records of the day instead of these generic, very vanilla types of sounds that they had before with these vocal groups with three or four part harmonies. They were kind of old-fashioned jingles. When Madison Avenue producers started to get younger, they wanted a younger sound. So my commercial career took off after my first two or three commercials, and a lot of people called me. There were four major jingle houses in New York that worked and must have done 60 to 70 percent of all of the jingles that you heard in the country, and they started to call me… I knew at that time, there is something about my commercial voice that people like. That was the year where I started to feel it.
Do you think your background in commercial work influenced your approach as a producer?
Not really, because I was mostly involved mostly with the vocals. I didn’t pay attention to the way they did the tracks. I paid attention to the studios they used and the engineers because they were the top studios at the time. The best sounding and the quickest! You didn’t have time in jingles to go, “does this feel right?” There was none of that. It was a business. You would come in at eight or nine in the morning and you would sing that commercial. There were no two ways about it. It was an assembly line. So, that showed me who the best people in New York were. Especially the arrangers. The people who arranged the jingles were really good and quick and aggressive. They would come in and make sure that sound was perfect and they would hire the best musicians.
So, there was something that I did learn from doing jingles. But, I had already been in the business for five years watching producers produce. Like Jeff Barry, one of the top producers and songwriters in the country. He was a great producer, he produced “I’m a Believer”. He wrote 30 hits. I would work for Jeff and I would get a lot of pointers on how to handle vocals and tracks. So, I was very fortunate in being exposed to really good people. I knew it was like college. It was my college! I was paying attention to what all of these writers and producers were doing in the studio, and I learned.
It is such a unique perspective and it must have been a great wealth of knowledge when going into the studio to work with Barry Manilow.
It’s true. On the Barry Manilow records I used the best jingle studio in town, the best jingle engineer in town, and the best jingle arranger in town. There were three or four of them. I would tap into that market with Manilow and Barry was amazed at how quickly we could get things done. In a six week period, we would do a whole album done in a Summer. Because there were no ands, ifs, or butts! We hired the best people and they brought their best game. Of course, Barry was a super talented guy. He laid the foundation for every arrangement that was done. But, my jingle experience really helped with Manilow, I must say. I met him in about 1973, singing a commercial. I was hired to do a commercial and I walk in and there’s Barry Manilow. I had just seen him on TV with Bette Midler on The Tonight Show a couple of nights before. I said, “I know you, you were on TV the other night!”
He was the writer of this jingle and I was in the vocal group with him… I remember him asking me, “I’d like you to listen to my songs.” So, that began the working relationship I had with him for 10 years.
Your voice, of course, is synonymous with the fictional band The Archies, but you are also responsible for the work on the first 9 Barry Manilow albums and were a go-to voice for Don Kirschner’s Brill Building. Yours is one of the most familiar voices to most people as a result of the hard work you were doing at the time, but it may seem as though they might not associate it with the name “Ron Dante”. How does it feel to have your voice be so recognizable in the culture without being “known” exactly?
Doing jingles, you are anonymous. But as a singer, you are very happy to have your voice on the radio and TV. with Manilow, I sang background on almost every one of his records... Every one of his big hits. From “I Write the Songs”, “Mandy”, “Can’t Smile Without You”, “CopaCabana”; my voice was in that group. Actually, the group was usually just Manilow and I, a lot of times. It was the two of us singing backgrounds. I think that familiarity, with that sound, I think, helped his records. People knew my voice, there is no doubt about it. At one point, in America, everyone would have heard my singing voice on their car radio or TV singing a commercial, whatever it may be… Everybody has heard my voice. That’s why I say in my act, “You may not know my face, but you’ve heard my voice. I have been in your bedroom and your living room many times!”
You’ve been the voice of many fictional bands — The Archies, The Chan Clan — When you approached these types of projects, did you have to slip into a role or character when recording?
Not really. I was so attuned to adjusting my voice to the song. With The Archies, a lot of those songs were written by Jeffy Barry, Andy Kim wrote “Sugar, Sugar” with him. A lot of them were very, very Pop songs with a happy, young lyric. So, I approached that with a very young sound, thinking that 11 and 13 year olds would be listening to this. I didn’t do my “hard” sound, I did my softer sound. Especially on “Sugar, Sugar”. That was a sound that I created consciously to be soft and airy, and it just turned into the sound!
With a group like The Cufflinks — which also is on this CD and they had “Tracy” and “When Julie Comes Around”— I went more grownup with “Tracy”. If you listen to the two records, you don’t hear the same vocalist on “Sugar, Sugar” and “Tracy”. There’s a difference. It’s more adult. “Tracy” was a grownup lyric about a girl and it could have been a twenty year old singing it. I was 23 or 24 when I sang it, so I used that emotion and that sound.
With The Chan Clan, I wrote all of the songs with my good friend Howard Greenfeld who is one of the top songwriters of all time with Neil Sedaka. He wrote every Neil Sedaka lyric of all the hits. We wrote ten songs for the Chan Clan and they were all specifically aimed at the theme of Charlie Chan and his detective kids. So, on that one, I just used a broad voice. I didn’t try to change it at all. I thought the songs would describe the voice, instead of the voice describing the songs. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I said it! (laughs).
I also went for a younger sound on The Chan Clan. If The Archies were 11-13, I went for 17-18 years old on The Chan Clan. Because the group was filled with kids who were a little older than The Archies. That was the mindset. I didn’t think it through at the time I just instinctively did it. Especially singing your own songs, which is a very interesting concept because you write it, you love it, you get into it, and then you have to record it and bring it back to life. So singing it was always fun. The Chan Clan sessions were enormous fun because I had the best arranger in town, Jimmy Wisner. If you look up Jimmy “The Wiz” Wisner, there are hundreds of songs that he arranged and he has a great body of work also.
Did you feel a sort of rush going into the studio to work on these assignments? It must have been thrilling to have to do research and prepare for each project.
It was fresh every time they approached me with a project. The Archies, I was incredibly thrilled because I grew up with Archie comics. I knew all of the characters. The fact that they were doing a Saturday Morning cartoon with filmation, with Don Kirschner and Jeff Barry, I knew it would be a success. Also, I just loved the project… Every time Don Kirschner called, I knew it would be successful in some form.
With the Spiderman album, Beyond the Grave, where I was the voice of Spiderman on this radio show with music. There were four or five songs on it and I sang for Spiderman in a group called The Web Spinners. With that one, it was before the Spiderman movies hit. But, it was still a monster comic book and it was a well-done production. I used an edgier sound, not angry, but edgier on the Spiderman project for those two cuts that will be on the CD. He was conflicted as a character. He had these powers that he didn’t know what to do with and he loved somebody and he didn’t know how to tell her. There were all of these things that were conflicting with the lead guy, so if you hear the lead vocals, you will hear an edgier Ron Dante.
How have you been able to maintain and take care of your voice over the years?
Not too much. The main thing is to not smoke and not drink heavily, and not yell and scream and abuse your vocal chords. It’s your instrument, just like lifting weights. I try to vocalize every few days even though I’m not working right now and I won’t work until early next year or maybe the Spring. I try to keep my vocals up. But I definitely don’t abuse it and I definitely don’t overwork it, because overworking it at my age isn’t good also. I’m up there and I want to keep what I have.
You are now the lead singer of the legendary band, The Turtles. How has it been performing with them?
In 2017, I was added to the Happy Together Tour as “Ron Dante of The Archies”. I got to sing three or four of my Archies records and the Cufflinks, I opened the show and we toured 50-60 cities. The next year before the tour started, I got a call from the promoter of the show and the manager of the Turtles and he said to me that the lead singer of The Turtles was not feeling well and he had to retire, Howard Kaylan. They thought, listening to you each night, why don’t you become the lead singer of The Turtles for the next tour?
I thought, “Well, this is a gift. Listen to that catalog!” Six, seven, eight beautiful songs including “Happy Together”. And I get to close the show! I sing with Mark Volman, who is an original Turtle as well. In 2018 and 2019 I became the lead singer of the Turtles and in 2021, I will be the lead singer of the Turtles again (laughs).
I do “Sugar, Sugar” in the middle of The Turtles act, which is a lot of fun because sometimes the people don’t recognize me, as you said, but they recognize the voice. Then Mark introduces me and says, “He’s not only the lead voice of the Turtles, but he’s the voice of ‘Sugar, Sugar’,” and then the audience goes crazy.
That’s how I became the lead singer of the Turtles. Because they saw me each night and they said, “Wow, we like your sound. You kind of sound like Howard”. Which I do! I understand the vocals. I understand the range that he had on those hit records. It was a natural mesh. It was a good thing for me at the time and it was kind of a shot in the arm. I was like, “Wow, I’m still wanted!”
With your experience, you have such a vast education in how you should approach a vocal. That must have prepared you for jumping into this legendary group.
I learned every song down pat that we had to do as The Turtles. I also studied his vocal style and his phrasing on the hit records. I said, “This is what I do”. You don’t add your own twists to “Happy Together”, “She’d Rather Be With Me”, or any of their hit records. You do it the way the people remember it. So, I just memorized those phrases and I even checked out where Howard breathes in between those phrases, so when people hear it they’re going, “Wow, that sounds like the record!” Because, that’s exactly what people want to hear. They don’t want to hear a new reimagined version of these hits. When they hear “Sugar, Sugar” they want to hear how it was done in 1969 not 2018 or 2019. They want to hear it the way it was done then, and same with The Turtles hits.