Life is Sweet: Ron Dante Brings his Golden Voice to Binghamton

Whatever Ron Dante is having for breakfast, we want some. His vibrant voice and mellow personality have carried him from his teenage years at the storied Brill Building, to the role of producer of Tony-winning Broadway shows and countless recordings - including the badass original version of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” and Barry Manilow’s first nine albums. Having played the role of vocalist for The Archies (“Sugar, Sugar”), The Cuff Links, and The Detergents, Ron Dante continues to reinvent himself. Carousel recently got a chance to interview Dante in anticipation of his December 1 performance at Touch of Texas, where he’ll be performing alongside “5 O’clock World” singers The Vogues:

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: You started your career at a young age. What was it like getting into the business while you were still becoming a person?

RON DANTE: It’s true. I was in New York City – I had a couple of groups I fronted - and we played CYO centers and sock hops and things, so I was doing it since I had been about 14 or 15 years old, in Staten Island, where I lived and grew up. I signed my first publishing deal at 17 with a guy named Don Kirshner, who was a very famous music mogul in the sixties; he had one of the biggest music publishing companies in the world. He had so many hits and hit writers signed to his company that I came in as just kind of a staff songwriter, singer-slash-demo-maker. He believed in me - and he had people on his staff - and there was Carole King, and Neil Sedaka, and Tony Orlando: all very famous people at the time in their songwriting and artist careers. So that was the beginning of my professional music career, and it was a great start, because I was a young kid in the office, and I learned from everybody. I did backgrounds and sang leads for these songwriters’ demos. It gave me a great kickstart to my career. I’ll always be grateful to Mr. Don Kirshner.

TCC: I was listening to some of the songs by The Detergents, and the humor really holds up! You have a great sense of humor. As a vocalist, is there something in singing parodies that fulfills you in ways that serious music does not?

RD: Not really – I mean, I’d rather sing real songs – I’d rather sing songs that touch people’s hearts. But it was fun. It was fun to make that record because we knew we were parodying a huge hit at the time. “The Leader of the Pack” was a breakthrough record because it had sound effects in it, and it had speaking in it. The Shangri-Las were a very cool girl group because they were the first girl group to have some edge to them, you know; they were kind of like, ‘don’t mess with us, guys – we know how to handle ourselves.’ It was an interesting time to do it.

And, also, it gave me the opportunity, because it was a hit record, and it was on a big label called Roulette Records, which was owned by the mob. So it was in every jukebox – there were jukeboxes then, in America – and we toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars – and we went to, like, 50 cities all summer and fall. So I got to see all these fans and play all these different places, from Canada to Texas. It was very interesting.

TCC: And you toured with the band that you were parodying?

RD: Yes! The Shangri-Las would go on and do their hits, and we’d come on and do our parodies of their hits. And people would laugh and get a kick out of it - even the [Shangri-Las] liked us.

TCC: That’s so great. I feel like people weren’t taking themselves too seriously then. I wonder if that could happen now.

RD: I don’t think so. People are so politically correct – ‘don’t make fun of us.’

TCC: You have a gift for transforming your voice – you know which vocal styles and tones people want to hear at a given time.

RD: You know, it just evolved. I grew up listening to lots of pop singers – from my dad’s type of singers, to people I discovered – and I could imitate a lot of the different sounds, from the early sixties: The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons; then there were the duets: The Everly Brothers. I had this tenor voice – I always sang, from when I was six or seven years old; I was always imitating and singing a little bit – I would imitate my father’s favorite singers, sometimes, just for kicks. I came from a big Italian family; everybody sang a little bit at the weddings and get-togethers, but nobody did it professionally. But I studied guitar a little bit, so I had a musical background, and I just sang.

I kept evolving my voice as I went along; I tried to choose really cool songs that people would like, and that I liked - because if you don’t like it, who else is gonna like it? You can’t just do it for the money, or if you think somebody else it gonna like it. I really liked what I recorded, and I was always saying yes to different songwriters. If they’d call me up and say, would you sing this song for me, this demo, I’d listen to the song and I’d say yes.

TCC: You did say yes to a lot – your voice led you to many things that weren’t directly related to singing. You published the Paris Review, you are a producer – you’re known in so many ways, but you’re also not the kind of celebrity who’s going to get run over walking down the street by a mob of crazed fans. Do you think that by being kind of a chameleon, and, in some ways, keeping under the radar, that allowed you more freedom in your career?

RD: That’s the absolute truth. My voice, my singing, led me to different careers. I was of the mind that you don’t have to be buttonholed, when people see you and say, ‘oh, he’s just a singer; he’s just the guy that performs onstage.’ I always felt I could do more, but when I was coming up in the music business, people like to buttonhole you, put you in this box and say, ‘that’s what you do, and we don’t accept you in anything else. We’re not going to consider you as a producer, or the manager, or the person who stages the shows.’ And I always felt that you could – if you have ambition – you could do a lot. So my voice took me into different camps, and I always knew it would take me to different places.

When I started to sing commercials, and jingles from Madison Avenue, I used my pop background to enhance my singing. But I always felt I could do more, but I had to break through. It was like there was a ceiling, also, for a performing artist.

TCC: Doing jingles, having a cartoon band – it’s not a superficial thing where people are getting used to seeing your face everywhere.

RD: It’s not just your calling card. You can do more, and I always felt that. You have to break through, though. You have to tell people ‘I can do this,’ and they look at you, and they go, ‘Can you really produce? You’re the singer. You’re the songwriter. You just write songs.’ And I would always say, ‘But no – we can do more. People can do more.’ You have to challenge the rules that were kind of set up to keep people down. And I broke through. And a lot of people came after me and broke through, because once the doors were open, they were open.

TCC: You talked about writing. Was the writer of “Sugar, Sugar” really a sugar junkie?

RD: No. There were two fellas involved: Jeff Barry and Andy Kim - those were the two writers. And Jeff Barry, in particular, was one of the biggest hit songwriters of the sixties, with his wife, Ellie Greenwich. They wrote, maybe, 40 hits - “Be My Baby,” “Hanky Panky,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me;” Jeff also wrote “I Honestly Love You” for Olivia Newton-John in the seventies – they were phenomenal tunesmiths. They wrote [“Sugar, Sugar”] directly for the Archies – the Archies needed a hit, and Jeff was our producer and songwriter, and he called Andy and said, ‘Andy, do you have any ideas for the group?’ And Andy said, ‘How ‘bout “Sugar, Sugar”?’ And that’s the way the song began. But he wasn’t a sugar junkie, no.

TCC: Was the pianist the sugar junkie, or am I just making this up? I thought I heard on one of your other interviews that there was some guy that had candy falling out of his pockets while he was playing piano, but maybe…

RD: No, there was – Don Kirshner had a piano – mister music mogul had a white piano in his office, and in one pocket was alcohol, and the other pocket was jelly beans.

TCC: Ahh… Don Kirshner.

RD: Yes, Kirshner – he had a sweet tooth.

TCC: Well, they say if you’re a sugar addict as a kid, you’re more likely to end up drinking as an adult.

RD: It’s true.

TCC: Let’s talk about producing. Is there something specific that you listen for, to know that something is right, when you’re choosing a song or someone to produce?

RD: I look for goosebumps; I look for the emotion that comes when I’m listening to it. When I met Barry Manilow, he played me one of his songs; he needed a record producer. He was working with Bette Midler at the time, and he said, ‘I want to be a soloist.’ I said, ‘Fine, play me some of your songs.’ He started to play me a song called “Could It Be Magic” which is one of his hits now, but then it was just his piano and him in the room, and I got goosebumps when he started to sing. There was something about his voice, his physical presence, and the song, and when those things all come together, I absolutely have to get involved.

TCC: You have such a great attitude. Do you have a philosophy or mantra that stays with you as you go through life?

RD: Not much of a philosophy except do no harm; leave it better than you found it, and just enjoy the ride. This is a beautiful life. I’m very grateful for all the opportunities that came my way, because they came my way and I said yes. A lot of people get bogged down on one focus, one track, and they don’t realize that there’s a lot more opportunities out there, you just have to open up to the universe. That’s kind of the way I run my life, and it’s led me down some wonderful paths. Lots of fun; it keeps you young. I love performing for a live audience and I’m really looking forward to coming back to Binghamton. I want everybody to dance. The Vogues are a great vocal group, and I’m looking forward to visiting the town!

Ron Dante will be playing Touch of Texas with The Vogues on Friday, December 1 as part of Solid Gold 104.5 FM’s Christmas concert; doors at 6pm, concert at 8. Tickets $20-$35; visit solidgold1045.com or touchoftexas.net. For more information on Ron, visit rondante.com.