Not The Archies, Not The Detergents: Ron Dante's Other Band That Time Forgot
Ron Dante may not be a household name, but he was nevertheless one of the biggest rock stars of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as he was the singer for multiple fictional bands that scored real Billboard hits, including the once-popular but now barely remembered Cuff Links. His most iconic role was providing the singing voice for Saturday morning cartoon star Archie Andrews of (the not-real group) the Archies, including on "Sugar, Sugar," an iconic love song that held the No. 1 spot the longest in 1969.
By that point, Dante was heavily involved in bubblegum, a joyful producer-created genre of pop-rock that was dominated by session musicians and marketed to children as an alternative to heavier boomer rock. Before he was the voice behind a cartoon act, he sang for other prefabricated or assembled studio bands. In addition to the Detergents, who hit the Top 20 in 1965 with the novelty parody song "Leader of the Laundromat," Dante was a "member" of the short-lived and mostly forgotten bubblegum project the Cuff Links.
The Cuff Links was a fake band that sold lots of real records
Paul Vance, co-writer of Brian Hyland's No. 1 "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," and songwriting partner Lee Pockriss repeatedly assembled studio-fabricated bands with Ron Dante performing vocals. None resonated, but then Dante landed the gig singing for the Archies, put together by his old Aldon Music boss Don Kirshner. As the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" climbed to No. 1 in 1969 and while he also headed up "Everything's Archie," a classic album that defines '60s bubblegum pop, Dante was already busy with Vance and Pockriss' latest creation, the Cuff Links.
When given "Tracy," the single they'd written, Dante recorded multiple tracks of himself singing different vocal parts, then arranged and edited them together in a harmonious, sprawling rock-band fashion. Neither Dante nor any other musician who played on the song, or the debut Cuff Links album, appeared on the sleeve or was properly credited, but that didn't affect sales. The Cuff Links' bouncy, jangly, folk-rock-inspired "Tracy" was a No. 9 hit in 1969, followed by "When Julie Comes Around," which peaked at No. 41.