The Archies came to be in 1968,
when the Archie comic strip was being developed into an animated television series. Archie
was created by John Goldwater in 1941, so the perpetual 17-year-old was already 27 when he made his Saturday-morning debut. The CBS series was produced by Filmation Studios, and New York City music man Don Kirshner was tapped as music supervisor for the show. He and producer Jeff Barry held auditions for the singing voice of Archie, and in the summer of 1968 that job went to Ron Dante, a staff singer/songwriter who had had a bit of
modest success a few years earlier as a member of the parody group The Detergents. |
The nonexistent group released a total of eleven singles over the next four years, enjoying their biggest success with the million-selling "Sugar, Sugar" in 1969. Ron provided all the male lead vocals (except
for the next-to-last single) and many of the backgrounds as well. Female vocals were provided by several studio singers,
most notably Toni Wine (best known for her shared lead vocals with Ron
on "Sugar, Sugar" and the followup single, "Jingle Jangle") and Donna Marie ("Who's Your Baby," "Together We Two").
The Archies also released five studio albums and one greatest-hits compilation; all albums were produced by Jeff Barry with the exception of the final LP, "This is Love," which was produced
by Ron Dante. Jeff wrote many of the songs for the group, including several (like "Sugar,
Sugar") with a young singer then recording on Jeff's own Steed label, Andy Kim. |
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