Much like his fellow comic-book character Howard The Duck, Ron Dante was once trapped in a world he did not make.
As the lead singer of The Archies, he was one of the primary architects of the relentlessly upbeat, hook-heavy ‘bubblegum’ sound that swept the charts and the airwaves in the late 60s and early 70s.
From Sugar Sugar to Bang Shang-A-Lang, Dante was racking up the hits left and right. The only problem was, The Archies weren’t a real band. They were a Saturday morning cartoon, based on a long-running (it only ceased publishing in 2020) comic book. Regardless of their popularity, The Archies remained anonymous, existing only to pacify pre-teens as they shovelled sugar-coated cereal into their mouths on Saturday mornings.
To add insult to an already bruised ego, another of Dante’s anonymous studio projects, the Cuff Links, scored a surprise top 10 hit with Tracy at the exact same time Sugar Sugar raced up the charts.
The Archie Show went off the air in 1969, but by this point bubblegum mania was in full swing. Dozens of Archies-wannabes with increasingly bizarre names – 1910 Fruitgum Company, Popcorn Rebellion, Groovy Goolies – flooded the airwaves and record stores and Saturday morning TV line-ups, so The Archies continued churning out sunshiny pop tunes until the whole bubblegum circus popped in 1972.
But Dante was already trying, fitfully, to break out of the cartoon-rocker game. In 1970, he released his first solo album, Ron Dante Brings You Up. Unfortunately, he utilised songs composed by Andy ‘Rock Me Gently’ Kim and Jeff ‘Sugar Sugar’ Barry, so the album essentially sounded like The Archies. Only it wasn’t a cartoon. So nobody wanted it.
In 1972, Dante met jingle-writer/future schlockmeister Barry Manilow at a commercial gig for Coca-Cola. The two hit it off and Manilow asked Dante to check out some demos he’d been working on. Dante liked what he heard and spent the next decade producing Manilow’s first nine albums, spawning a frankly ridiculous amount of Top 10 hits, including soft-pop headache-makers like Mandy and I Write The Songs.
While Dante has always contended that he loved bringing Manilow’s twisted visions to life, and while that tenure was certainly the most successful and lucrative era of Dante’s long and winding career, it was obvious that he wanted something more out of life. In 1979, like a lot of misguided industry types, Dante recorded a disco album, Dante’s Inferno. It’s not awful, as far as clueless, late-period roller-disco records go, but the genre was already headed for over-saturation by the time it hit the bins, and by 1980, all anybody wanted to hear was The Knack. So much for Dante’s Inferno.
So what does a failed disco star who was once a cartoon do next? He becomes the publisher of the Paris Review for a couple years. Then he produces Ain’t Misbehavin’ on Broadway. And when none of that satisfies either, he makes a goddamn AOR record. That’s what you’d do, right?
Street Angel was released on the very-short-lived Handshake Records in 1981. Only one of the songs (God Bless Rock’N’Roll) was written by Dante. The rest were penned by the usual 70s songwriter suspects: Larry ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ Weiss, Desmond ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ Child, Richard ‘Mandy’ Kerr. It was produced by Dante and David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer. Every sign points to an overblown, overproduced mess. And boy, does it deliver.
Street Angel opens with the title track, a piano bar ballad filled with plinky keys and ridiculous lines about ‘Two shadows dancing on the ceiling’. It sounds like the falling-in-love montage in a Dudley Moore movie, although I’m reasonably sure it’s about a sex worker. At any rate, it’s a hell of an opener. It’s basically daring you to keep going.
Show And Tell is easy-going West Coast soft rock. Like all of Dante’s music, it sounds like it’s selling something. Maybe mouthwash or winecoolers. It’s followed by another ballad, the dreary I Can’t Stop, which sounds like something Paul Anka would toss in the trash for being too trite. Even Barry Manilow himself would demand somebody spice this hunk of spoiled treacle up. I Can’t Stop is probably what it sounds like when you drown on your own yacht.
Things heat up considerably for the uptempo rocker Letter From Zowie, which zips along on a piping keyboard riff that bares a strong resemblance to Bon Jovi’s Runaway. There’s also a scorching solo from jazz guitarist Hiram Bullock, and Dante actually sounds awake for the duration. You will not learn who Zowie is or what the letter says – curiously, all the lyrics on this album seem half-written – but it’s a great song. If I was making you a mix-tape in 1981, this would be on it. Side one closes with Dante’s own God Bless Rock’N’Roll. It’s as close as this record comes to swagger. I’ll take it.
Side two is kind of a nightmare. It’s a Steely Dan/Barry Manilow/disco mash-up of songs that sound like the last demo tape some fledgling late-70s songwriter recorded before he hurled himself off the roof of the Brill Building. It ends with a cover of Huey ‘Piano’ Smith’s 1959 hit Sea Cruise. There’s no way to make that song sound any better. If Status Quo couldn’t do it, what chance does Ron Dante have?
Not surprisingly, Street Angel didn’t do much business. Despite the fact that it was written, performed and produced by industry pros who were successful before and after making the album, it just sounds like no one involved had any idea what 1981 was supposed to sound like. Handshake Records went tits-up a year later. Dante finally decided that being rich was pretty much just as good as being rich and famous, and went back to work behind the scenes, pumping out a steady stream of lightweight pop tunes for TV and film, and producing albums for Cher, Irena Cara and Pat Benatar, among others. And life, as it does, went on.
More recently, Dante’s been hitting the oldies circuit, finally laying claim to songs he made famous back when he was still a cartoon, and filling in for a waylaid Howard Kaylan as a member of The Turtles. He probably doesn’t play Letter From Zowie, but if I ever see him, I’m gonna yell it out. If he’s up for taking requests.
