Ah, a prime piece of bubblegum.
That’s Ron Dante in the video, lead vocalist on the record. Not only did Dante (born Carmine Granito) sing lead on this, the number 1 song of 1969, but he also sang lead and backgrounds on “Tracy,” a number 9 hit by the Cufflinks. Has any other singer had two anonymous top ten hits in the same year? Maybe Darlene Love.
Dante’s days as top ten vocalist ended with the Archies, but his name soon began to appear as producer on a string of Barry Manilow’s hit albums from 1973 to 1981. So, yes, “Sugar Sugar,” “Weekend in New England,” and “Copacabana” all have Dante’s fingerprints on them. But before you rush to judgment, Dante also produced the Tony Award–winning Fats Waller revue, Ain’t Misbehaving, in 1978. And, to cap it all off, that same year Dante’s neighbor, George Plimpton, asked him to act as the publisher of the Paris Review, which he did for seven years. Who knew the voice behind “Sugar Sugar” belonged to such a renaissance man?
Dante was not the only man behind the song. It was written (with Andy Kim) by Jeff Barry, who also produced it. Barry was one of the songwriting kings of the early 1960s and, with his wife, Ellie Greenwich, was a key member of Phil Spector’s stable of writers, penning “And Then He Kissed Me,” “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” “Chapel of Love,” “Leader of the Pack,” and more. As a producer he helmed Neil Diamond’s early Bang! Records hits. It might seem like a steep drop in aspiration from “River Deep Mountain High” to “Sugar Sugar”—a desperate attempt to pander to the emerging preteen TV market in the dying days of the Brill Building era—but consider: He was also behind such songs as “Iko Iko,” “Hanky Panky,” “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” and “Cherry Cherry.” In that light, Barry seems a model of consistency and “Sugar Sugar,” a characteristic, if notably minimal, entry in a long line of nonsense.
Besides, everybody needs a little sugar now and then.
– Tom Fredrickson is the proprietor of the unparalleled music blog, Lost Wax Method.
