Now we have one of the strangest songs to ever hit number one on the pop charts in America. Not since “Alley Oop” in 1960 have we had such an unusual song at number one. The Archies were a non-existent band. They didn’t exist. The whole thing was based on a Saturday morning cartoon show called The Archie Show which featured all of your favorite characters from the Archie comic books, Archie, Jughead, Reggie and of course Betty and Veronica. Wikipedia calls them a “virtual” band, however, I don’t think that would be a term we would have used in 1969.

Don Kirshner was the brains behind the Archies. He was also behind the success of the Monkees and their television show. He got together some studio musicians who played on the soundtrack of the Archie Show, since there was a lot of music in the show and hired a fellow named Ron Dante to sing vocals for the studio band.

Ron Dante never had a hit under his own name, but he was in the background on many hits during the late Sixties. Dante was born Carmine John Granito in 1945 on Staten Island, New York. There’s not much about his early life online except that when he was eleven years old, he fell out of a tree and broke his arm. His doctor recommended exercise of the arm and so his father bought him a guitar and his music career began.

When he was sixteen, he was hired by Don Kirshner and worked as a recorder of demos and other odd jobs until he got the gig of singing the lead on “Sugar, Sugar.” All of the voices you hear on the song are Dante except for a couple places where you hear a female voice and that is Toni Wine. Wine came out of nowhere to sing this part and then disappeared again afterwards, so we never hear from her again.

“Sugar, Sugar” is the quintessential bubblegum song, feeding the nations desire for this type of music in the late Sixties. Bubblegum faded away very quickly. The Archies recorded some other songs, hitting the Top 40 two more times after “Sugar, Sugar,” but never hit number one again. The song was written by Jeff Barry, the guy who produced “I’m a Believer” for the Monkees and Andy Kim who would have his own number one song “Rock Me Gently” in 1974.

Ron Dante was also the voice of the entire group, The Detergents, which had a number nineteen song “Leader of the Laundromat” in 1964 (a parody of the Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack.”) He was also the voice of the entire group, The Cuff Links, who had a number nine hit with “Tracy” in the latter part of 1969, after “Sugar, Sugar” had peaked.

“Sugar, Sugar” debuted on the pop charts on August 16, 1969 and stayed at number one for four weeks. It is rated by Billboard Magazine as the number one song of the entire year, 1969. Pretty good for a band that doesn’t exist.