Ron Dante

Carmine John Granito (born August 22, 1945), known professionally as Ron Dante, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Dante is best known as the real-life lead singer of the fictional cartoon band the Archies; he was also the vocalist of the Cuff Links, The Turtles (in 2018) and co-produced Barry Manilow's first nine albums.

Dante was born Carmine John Granito to an Italian-American family in Staten Island, New York, United States.

Dante was a member of the parody group the Detergents around 1965. The group recorded a novelty song called "Leader of the Laundromat", although Dante was not on that recording.

He became lead singer of the fictional cartoon band The Archies, whose single "Sugar, Sugar", written and composed by producer Jeff Barry with Andy Kim, was the number-one selling record of 1969 in the United States. Concurrent with his work on the Archies project, Dante was also employed as a session singer and performed many television and commercial jingles.

In 1969, Dante recorded an album under the group name of the Cuff Links – a collaboration with Detergents songwriter-producers Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss. He provided both lead and background vocals through overdubbing, as he did with most of the male Archies vocals. For three weeks in October 1969, Dante had two hits in the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot 100: both the Cuff Links' "Tracy" and, on its way down from number one, the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar", though neither single's label credited the anonymous studio singer. Dante's extensive vocal range includes falsetto, as used in "Jingle Jangle", the Archies' Top Ten follow-up to "Sugar, Sugar".

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.