[Cover photo – Happy Together Tour 2026, courtesy of Ron Dante]

Singer-songwriter, studio vocalist, and producer Ron Dante is best known as the lead male vocalist for the studio group The Archies, who reached No. 1 in 1969 with the gold single “Sugar, Sugar.” While “Sugar, Sugar” was in the Top 40 that year, so was “Tracy” by another Ron Dante led studio group, The Cuff Links. From the early ‘70s through the early ‘80s, Dante co-produced the first nine albums for Barry Manilow, all gold or platinum sellers, and he sang backing vocals on some of the tracks. In recent years, on the Happy Together Tour, he was the lead singer of The Turtles, replacing the retired Howard Kaylan (aka Eddie). After the passing of The Turtles’ co-founder Mark Volman (aka Flo) in September of 2025, Dante returned to the Happy Together Tour 2026 under his own name, performing “Sugar, Sugar” and “Tracy” along with The Turtles’ “Elenore” and “Happy Together.”

As the Happy Together Tour 2026 kicked off last May, Dante released a 4-song EP called Ron Dante’s ‘60s Summer Hits, which began with his version of “Happy Together.” Now he has released another 4-song EP called Let’s Live for Today: Ron Dante Sings The Grass Roots, which he explains in this Wildfire article.

4-song EP available on digital formats

Warren Kurtz: All four songs on your new EP sound great. How did it come to be?

Ron Dante: I was hired to record The Grass Roots minus their lead singer at the Whisky a Go Go show with Nancy Sinatra one night. I hired a truck and brought in the microphones and machinery. The truck was behind the Whisky a Go Go. We recorded Nancy and The Grass Roots doing their entire sets. It ended up that they didn’t want the music released but they gave me the rights to use the tracks. So, it is the live musicians of The Grass Roots at that time. It must have been twenty years ago, maybe even longer. I remixed the tracks recently and put my voices on them. I am singing harmony with myself. I was a huge fan of The Grass Roots, so this project was a lot of fun for me to do. I still go to their shows today with Mark Dawson singing and Dusty Harvey playing guitar. I am always backstage watching. I met their original lead singer Rob Grill a few times.

WK: I also met Rob when I saw the band in 2003 at Hot August Nights in Reno. When he passed away in 2011, his widow Nancy was playing The Grass Roots music in his final hours for him, and as he passed, she said that “Let’s Live for Today” was the final song he heard. I like what you did. The melody sounds like there were a few changes.

RD: I always reinterpret songs just a little, so if the melody is a bit different, those were mistakes as I was trying to remember the exact melody when I was singing the song, but they worked for me vocally, so I kept it that way. You generally go with what your memory remembers of the lyrics, melody, and syncopation, so you go with it. I remembered what I could and had so much fun singing these great songs from a group with hit after hit. The band played really well on these tracks.

WK: The first record by The Grass Roots I bought was “Midnight Confessions” in 1968. That same year I bought my first pop music book called Flip’s Groovy Guide to the Groops! from the editors of Flip Teen Magazine. On page 159, alphabetically between The Electric Prunes and The 5th Dimension, was The Ever-Green Blues from Los Angeles. They mention the group’s first release, “Midnight Confessions,” written by their manager. It was released as a single in 1967 on Mercury Records with the brass section in the band playing the parts we would hear the following year on the radio on The Grass Roots recording, after the original single failed to chart. When my wife Donna was listening to your EP, she commented that she could understand all your words clearly, which led me to learning some lines in “Midnight Confessions” that I never knew, so thank you for your clear delivery.

RD: These are the types of songs I could have recorded in the late ‘60s. They are uplifting with great choruses, beautiful melodies, and the lyrics were always cool. “Midnight Confessions” is also a great title. I didn’t have to change any of the keys for these songs. They were all perfect for me.

WK: What is interesting about my all-time favorite song by The Grass Roots, “Wait a Million Years,” is that it debuted in the Top 40 in August of 1969, just like “Sugar, Sugar.” You guys were on the radio at the same time with your hits.

RD: What a great year for music. The fact that “Sugar, Sugar” took the No. 1 spot for the whole year is just amazing. I am very proud that I was part of that whole group, singing those songs. If you look at the Top 10 songs of 1969, you’ll know all of them and can sing all of their hooks. Those were magnificent songs in a golden age of songwriting, recording, and singing. All those things came together in a magical year. It was an amazing time.

 WK: Now we move on to the ‘70s. In 1971, The Grass Roots released “Temptation Eyes” but did not release another song that was pitched to them. Rob used to tell the story on stage how he was not at the band meeting the day that “Don’t Pull Your Love” was offered to the group. The guys who were there rejected it. That year, “Don’t Pull Your Love” became a Top 5 gold single for Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, while “Temptation Eyes” peaked at No. 15. After Rob heard “Don’t Pull Your Love” on the radio, he then learned that the other guys rejected it, which he said he certainly would not have done, and he included it in The Grass Roots live shows as “the one that got away.” The good news is that “Temptation Eyes” did become the first of three consecutive Top 20 hits for the group that year, followed by “Sooner or Later” and “Two Divided by Love.” Your version of “Temptation Eyes” maintains the original edge and Dusty’s guitar playing is solid.

RD: I did my best to mix these songs properly and make them sound live in a way. It was nice to have The Grass Roots’ musicians playing on this EP. When I perform songs on the cruise ships, I am given almost an hour which will allow me time to perform one or two songs by The Grass Roots. It is always special talking with you. It is such a pleasure. See you at one of the shows.

L to R: Gary Puckett, Ron Dante, and Jason Scheff, backstage at the Happy Together Tour 2026, courtesy of Ron Dante

Warren Kurtz, a long-time music journalist and author, can be contacted at fabulousflipsides@yahoo.com