Latest news with #HappyTogetherTour
Miami Herald
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Ron Dante, voice of the Archies, now sings with the Turtles: ‘Honor the songs'
SAN DIEGO - Few singers have been as widely heard but remain as little known as Ron Dante, who is now on the "Happy Together Tour" as the lead singer in the Turtles. Fewer still scored their biggest successes - completely uncredited - in the 1960s as the fictional lead singer in the highest-rated Saturday morning cartoon TV series in history, then became the voice of Coca-Cola, Campbell's Soup, Dr Pepper, McDonald's and Budweiser in ubiquitous national TV jingles. That series, "The Archie Show," debuted in 1968 as an adaptation of the popular comic book, "Archie." Both iterations featured the titular teenage character and his pals Jughead, Betty, Veronica and Reggie, who were also the members of the animated band the Archies. The nonexistent group's frothy 1969 song, "Sugar, Sugar," was the biggest-selling single of the year in the U.S., topping the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," the Beatles' "Get Back" and a slew of other classics. The song was later recorded by Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner and Bob Marley, among others. Dante was the lead singer on nearly all the singles and albums released under the Archies' moniker, including "Sugar, Sugar." It also rose to No. 1 in Mexico, Norway, South Africa, Brazil and 10 other countries. "Sugar, "Sugar" did so, even though the Archies only existed in cartoon form and never performed a single concert or even a single song live. "It's very interesting when your song goes No. 1 and they play it on TV on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' and all they play is the cartoon!" said Dante, who will celebrate his 80th birthday on Aug. 22. He is performing with the current iteration of the Turtles, who headline the annual Happy Together Tour's 2025 edition. The lineup also includes Little Anthony and the current iterations of Jay and the Americans, the Vogues, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap and the Cowsills. "I was a journeyman singer and went where the work was," he explained. "I was fine with the anonymity. When I took on the job with the Archies, it was right up front that I would not be credited or promoted as having anything to do with them. But all in all, it's been great for my life." Was it easy or difficult for Dante to create a musical personality for cartoon characters? "I was well-versed with the Archies because I'd read all the 'Archie' comics and I knew what they were going for with the TV series," he replied, speaking from his Los Angeles home. "The show had two new songs each week and was produced by Don Kirshner, who had achieved great success with 'The Monkees.' He had a great team with (songwriter) Jeff Barry, and I knew what voice to bring to 'Sugar, Sugar,' 'Bang-Shang-A-Lang' and the other Archies' songs." Dante laughed. "I knew we were not Led Zeppelin!" he said. 'We were going for a younger market, a 9- to-13-year-old bubblegum market, of kids who were just discovering pop music. So, I put myself in that mindset and I knew I had to be respectful and sound clean cut." In 1969, the year the Archies peaked, Dante also did all the vocals - again uncredited - on "Tracy," a No. 9 hit that was credited to another nonexistent group, the Cuff Links. To cash in on the song's success and a subsequent album for which Dante recorded all his parts in barely two days, a band called the Cuff Links was hastily assembled and sent out on tour without him. Dante was all of 23 when the Archies hit it big. But he was already a music-biz veteran who had written songs recorded by Jay and the Americans ("Raining In My Sunshine") and Gary Lewis & the Playboys ("Ice Melts in the Sun"). He went on to co-produce all of Barry Manilow's albums between 1973 and 1980, as well as albums by Ray Charles, Cher and others. He also contributed backing vocals to albums by Steely Dan and the hard-rocking power trio Mountain. 'Caravan of Stars' Dante was just 18 when he co-founded a short-lived trio, the Detergents, which made one album. The group's lone hit, "Leader of the Laundromat" - a parody of the Shangri Las' 1964 chart-topper, "Leader of the Pack" - rose no higher than No. 19 on the national Billboard charts. But before they washed out, the Detergents did a national Dick Clark "Caravan of Stars" concert tour. It also featured Little Richard, the Animals and Little Anthony and the Imperials, whose lead singer, Anthony Goudine, is part of this year's Happy Together Tour and, at 84, the oldest artist in the lineup. "Anthony is four years older than me and he still sounds like his 20-year-old self," Dante said. "We played cards together on the 'Caravan' tour bus in 1965. Now, we've come full circle and we're on the bus together again." The Happy Together Tour debuted in 1984 and was named after the Turtles' chart-topping 1967 hit, "Happy Together." The tour ran through 1987 with a rotating cast of artists and the Turtles as the headliners. It resumed in 2010, again with the Turtles topping the bill each year. After he toured as an opening act on the 2017 Happy Together tour, Dante returned the next year to replace the ailing Howard Kaylan as the lead singer in the Turtles. He has retained that role on each subsequent tour, singing alongside Turtles' co-founder Mark Volman, who continued touring after being diagnosed in 2020 with Lewy body dementia. The same disease afflicted comedian Robin Williams before he died by suicide. A number of bands that rose to fame in the 1960s continue to tour. But few of them still have any original members left in their current iterations. "People don't really know who is in the Association or the Grass Roots. They know the songs," said Dante, who performs several Archies' hits during the Turtles' Happy Together Tour sets. "When Mark called me in 2018 and asked me to be the lead singer in the Turtles, he said: 'You have to be true to the music. You're not Howard; we're not going to dress you up in costumes and have you do comedy. So, honor the songs and do them the way we recorded them.'" Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Miami Herald
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Gary Puckett sings on at 82: ‘In 1968, we sold more singles than the Beatles'
SAN DIEGO - Scoring in academia or on the Top 40? Striving for pop stardom or learning psychoanalytic therapy? The Union Gap or the synaptic gap? When Gary Puckett moved to San Diego in 1960 - seven years before he and his band scored their first hit single with "Woman Woman" - it was to enroll at City College, not to pursue music. Fate had other things in store for him. "I was into psychology and thought about maybe getting a medical degree," recalled Puckett, who spent two years at City College but couldn't afford the tuition to attend SDSU or UC San Diego. "I was tired of school and truly more interested in music, so I started playing in small bands." And not so small bands. The Ravens, his first San Diego group of note, was an 11-piece ensemble with a brass section and backing singers. In 1964 Puckett became the lead singer in the Outcasts, a four-man band that performed frequently at the Quad Room in Clairemont. They released two singles, "Runaway" and "I Can't Get Through To You," which gained local radio airplay. His next band, Gary and the Remarkables, soon morphed into Gary Puckett & The Union Gap. With his soaring - at times almost operatic vocals - at the fore, the vintage military uniform-clad group scored a slew of hit singles between 1967 and 1969, including "Woman, Woman," "Young Girl," "Lady Willpower," "Over You" and "This Girl Is A Woman Now." "In 1968, we sold more singles - not albums - than the Beatles. We sold more singles than anyone, so that's a little badge of honor," said Puckett, now 82, speaking from his Florida home in the coastal city of Clearwater. Those hit singles will be featured when Puckett performs as part of the 2025 Happy Together Tour. The lineup also features Little Anthony and the current iterations of the Turtles, the Cowsills, Jay and the Americans, and the Vogues. While his appearance is billed as Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, he acknowledged that he will be accompanied by the same four-man house band that backs all the Happy Together Tour acts. A Minnesota native, Puckett shares the same hometown as Bob Dylan, whose song, "The Mighty Quinn," was covered with brassy verve on The Union Gap's second album. The title of another Dylan song, "Changing of the Guards," best conveys what happened to Puckett and the members of the Union Gap, which disbanded in 1971, two years after the singer signed a solo recording deal with Columbia Records. 'Some slim times' His 1971 release, "The Gary Puckett Album," fared so poorly it didn't even make it onto the bottom of the national Billboard Top 200. After selling millions of records, touring the nation and appearing multiple times on some of the most-watched TV shows of the time with The Union Gap, Puckett's career in music evaporated almost overnight. "People were moving on and people in my generation were having families," Puckett said. "The new generation was paying attention to David Bowie and T. Rex. Radio wouldn't play our music. I found myself going through some slim times. "I studied acting and made a film in the Philippines, 'Dynamite,' that didn't succeed. You will never find it. It was about a band that was successful because of the death of one of its members …." After he completed filming, Puckett returned for a few years to Los Angeles where he had moved in the late 1960s. He came back to San Diego in 1978 and began playing in a duo with guitarist Paul Martin at the Anchorage Fish Company in La Jolla. Their repertoire consisted of Union Gap favorites, classics by the Beatles and Buddy Holly, and then-current hits by such acts as Little River Band and Exile. In 1980, Puckett began working with SRO, a San Diego lounge band, and asked Kicks magazine publisher Tom Arnold to manage him despite the fact Arnold had never managed any music acts. In early 1981, Puckett launched a new band with the goal of fueling a comeback and obtaining a recording contract. After doing some warm-up gigs in Las Vegas, the group did a homecoming show at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. The performance received such a tepid review in the San Diego Union that, after reading it, Puckett fired the band, fired his fledgling manager and shelved his comeback attempt. "We did play at the Bacchanal, which I think was a mistake," Puckett said. "All these years later, Tom and I are still friends." Puckett maintained a low profile until 1984, when the Turtles launched their first Happy Together Tour and invited Puckett and a reconstituted Union Gap to be one of the acts in the multi-band lineup. His star rose significantly higher in 1986 when he and The Union Gap joined the Grass Roots and Herman's Hermits on the Monkees' 20th anniversary reunion concert trek. That tour included a show at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, making Puckett the only artist in memory to go from playing at the Anchorage Fish House to the home of the San Diego Padres baseball team. "It was a spectacular tour, the biggest of the year," he said. "And it was our good luck that radio stations began playing the music of our generation again. The Monkees certainly put us back on the map." In a Union-Tribune interview previewing the San Diego tour stop of the 2012 Happy Together Tour, the then-69-year-old Puckett referred to himself as "an old man." Had anyone told him then that he'd still be touring 13 years later, how would he have reacted? "I would not have believed it!" Puckett replied. "I would have said: 'You've got to be kidding.' This year I'm doing 59 or 60 Happy Together Tour shows and about 40 more on my own. "There are times when I honestly want to say: 'OK, I am done touring. I want to spend time with my family and swim with my grandkids.' There are other times when I am so inspired being on stage and inspired by the enthusiasm of the audience shaking my hand and thanking me. So, I have no idea how long I'll keep doing this. I'll let go of the reins when the time comes." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Miami Herald
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Susan Cowsill was 7 when she joined the Cowsills in 1966. She's on tour with them now
SAN DIEGO - Susan Cowsill stands out in more ways than one on the 2025 Happy Together Tour. She is the only woman artist in this year's lineup of the annual tour. It features Little Anthony and the current iterations of the Turtles, Jay and the Americans, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, the Vogues and the Cowsills, the group with which Susan Cowsill rose to fame in the second half of the 1960s. At 66, she is the youngest featured musician on this year's tour. Little Anthony is 84, Gary Puckett is 82. Cowsill is the only Happy Together Tour participant who is also a key member of another veteran band - the proudly rootsy Continental Drifters - which appeals to a younger and almost entirely different audience than any other Happy Together Tour acts. And she is the only one who, as an in-demand studio musician, has sung on albums by such diverse artists as Nanci Griffith, Hootie & the Blowfish, Dwight Twilley, Giant Sand, Red Kross and such Louisiana-bred acts as the Radiators and Zachary Richard. "I was a 'singer/entertainer' up until I was 30, which is when I learned to play guitar," said Cowsill, speaking from her New Orleans home. "Then, I learned to be a musician and a songwriter, and that changed everything for me. It added to my already rich and wonderful life musical life." Cowsill's musical life began unusually early by almost any standards. She was barely seven in 1966 when she joined her family's band, the Cowsills, which served as the real-life inspiration for the hit 1960s TV show "The Partridge Family." The Cowsills featured her five older brothers - John, Paul, Barry, Bob and Bill - and their mother, Barbara. Their father, William "Bud" Cowsill, was their manager until a year after Susan became a member. The group made six albums between 1966 and 1971. Their hit singles included "The Rain, The Park and Other Things," "Indian Lake" and the chart-topping "Hair," the title track from the musical of the same name. "It obviously wasn't everyday life, but I didn't view being in the Cowsills as anything other than being in my family," Susan Cowsill recalled. "We made life on the road very entertaining for ourselves. One year we had an early concert on Halloween and my dad arranged for me to go trick-or-treating in whatever city we were in. "We had a tutor on the road with us for really only one year. We went to 'professional schools' for a year in New York and in Los Angeles. They both had (options) where we could send in our work from the road, and that's what we did. Nobody learned anything! We were filling in each other's notebooks like crazy. It wasn't normal in any way shape or form." With their wholesome image, rich vocal harmonies and well-crafted but unthreatening songs, the Cowsills were embraced as a clean-cut pop alternative to the increasingly more edgy rock music of the 1960s. Were Susan and her brothers eager to rebel and create less commercial, more challenging music than their record company would allow? "One hundred percent, but mostly my brothers," she said. "I was the youngest and was more tagging along but paying attention. My brothers were amazing musicians and songwriters. They started as an R&B band and were very serious about what they were doing. As often happens, the image of the band was taken over by the record company and they went with the 'wholesome family' thing. That's okay, but the music got hijacked." 'The band was done' The Cowsills disbanded after the release of their arresting 1971 album, the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young-inspired "On My Side." Susan was all of 12. At 14, she signed a record deal as a solo artist with Warner Bros. but released only two singles for the label. The first was "I Think of You," the first cover version by any artist of any song by Sixto "Sugarman" Rodriguez. "When the band was done, the band was done," Cowsill said. "I didn't know what I was to do. I was left to my own devices. We weren't really prepared for life when we left the Cowsills. I was the youngest and trying to figure out what kind of music would I do, or if I would even make music. Or would I become a schoolteacher?" The all-in-the-family band first reunited in 1978, then again in 1989, 1993 and 1998. "The Cowsills never break up, we just take breaks. And then we all show up," Cowsill said. Both parents have passed away; mom Barbara in 1985 and dad William in 1992. Susan's brothers, Barry and Bill, died in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The group was chronicled in the 2010 documentary "Family Band: The Cowsills Story," which premiered in the band's home state at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. As has been the case for nearly all of the nearly one-dozen Happy Together tours the Cowsills have been featured on, Susan Cowsill is the only female musician. "Susan is like so cool," said Turtles' singer Ron Dante. "She makes everybody feel like they are in the family. She is a great singer and is a spark plug who keeps things running. She relay brings energy everywhere she goes. She is an amazing person," Fellow Happy Together tour artist Gary Puckett also happily sang her praises. "Susan is absolutely wonderful," he said. "She's an earth mother who watches out for everybody on the tour. She fills the space with happiness." The Cowsills have been inducted into the California Music Hall of Fame and New York's Long Island Hall of Fame. Susan Cowsill is delighted she and her brothers Bob and Paul get to tour together annually. "What is surprising to me," she said, "is not that I'm playing with the guys - we'll do that until our last breath - but that we have a (regular) job. The Happy Together Tour is the first job security I've had in the music business. "This is the 11th year for us with the tour. I like to say that we have jobs, but we have different time clocks and pay periods than most people." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wisconsin State Fair reveals 2025 opening-night main stage headliner: Midland
Texas country trio Midland will kick off the 2025 Wisconsin State Fair, as the fair's Bank Five Nine Main Stage headliner on opening night. Country rock band Southall will open the July 31 show, the fair announced Wednesday. Tickets, priced at $35 and $49, go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at and include fair general admission July 31. Friday at 10 a.m. is also when tickets go on sale for the Aug. 2 main stage fair show with Ne-Yo announced Tuesday. Tickets are on sale for these other main stage shows, with just two left to be announced: Previously confirmed fair shows include: Boyz II Men (Aug. 1), We The Kingdom (Aug. 4), Kidz Bop (Aug. 5), Gabriel 'Fluffy' Iglesias (Aug. 7), Darius Rucker (Aug. 8), Lynyrd Skynyrd (Aug. 9) and the Happy Together Tour (Aug. 10). The fair will return July 31 to Aug. 10. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin State Fair reveals 2025 opening-night headliner: Midland
CBS News
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
How the Minnesota State Fair picks acts for the Grandstand
As snow wallops Minnesota, people might be longing for summer. And one massive event many look forward to is starting to take shape. Four headliners have been announced so far for the Grandstand at the Minnesota State Fair. They are Old Dominion (Aug. 21), Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls (Aug. 24), the Happy Together Tour (Aug. 25) and Def Leppard (Aug. 26). WCCO learned all but one night has been booked for the Grandstand in 2025, but fair staff can't reveal them all just yet because some artists haven't officially announced their tours. That has us wondering: How is entertainment picked for the Minnesota State Fair? Good Question. Jeff Wagner shares the exciting history, from music to mayhem. Outside of learning what new foods will end up a stick, there might not be greater anticipation from Minnesota State Fairgoers than finding out who will headline at the Grandstand. "It's really the heartbeat of the fairgrounds," said Renee Alexander. She is the fair's CEO and for two decades has had the rockin' responsibility of booking acts for the biggest stage. How is the entertainment picked for the grandstand? Alexander described it as a puzzle. "It starts with who is actually out touring for the summer," she said. Next, is the artist in the Midwest during the fair's 12-day schedule? "If they have a show the night before ... 500 miles is kind of the max they will (travel)," she said. Capacity is another factor. Are 14,000 seats too many to fill or not enough? "For example, Taylor Swift. She can fill a football stadium for multiple nights, so she's not an option for us," said Alexander. Before her explosion to stardom, Swift played at the grandstand in 2007 as an opener for Brad Paisley at just 17 years old. Country and classic rock are the most popular music genres at the fair, but the diverse lineup also includes hip hop, pop, blues and more. Beyond music, comedians and other acts that make crowds laugh take the stage. One unique experience included the Internet Cat Video Festival. "There were 10,000 people to watch internet cat videos," Alexander said with a smile. The fair has come a long way since the early days of Grandstand entertainment. Thrill shows were a staple at the venue for over a century. That included a Civil War reenactment in the 1880s, crashing two trains head-on and a car crashing through a burning wall. Racing, by horse and car, was often the main attraction. The summer of 2002 was the last time people sat in the stands and watched cars race around the track. Since then, there have been major structural changes to the Grandstand, including new seating, permanent concession buildings on both ends of the grounds, and party decks for a unique viewing experience. How is entertainment booked for the smaller stages? "We've got a team of staff in our free entertainment department that is working on booking the free stages all the time," she said. Artists booked for the free stages, like the bandshell, get to perform on two consecutive days. The music often features local acts, old favorites and up-and-comers dreaming of a chance to grace the Grandstand. "There's nothing better than outdoors in the summer in Minnesota. The fans come to the fair, they bring the energy, and have a great time," she said.
