In my last post, I wrote about some 60s & 70s pop songs that I didn't particularly care for. One of these was Angie Baby as recorded by Helen Reddy. In fact, I never particularly cared for her singing. However, if you read the comments from that post, I got a short comment back from Alan O'Day, the song's composer. It simply said, "I'm CRUSHED!!!"
Now while I still don't like that song, Alan I do want to clarify that I do dig Undercover Angel, so my mention of it was to demonstrate that it isn't all of your work I don't like. Just that one song. So I figured I should clarify that. :-) By the way, Rock 'n' Roll Heaven ain't half bad either.
Anyway, I popped over to Alan's website, and found some pretty interesting stuff there. One of the things I saw there was a picture of Alan and Ron Dante. Ron is not one of the better known people in popular music, at least to the general population. However, his voice and recordings are pretty well known by pop music fans. You see, he was the voice behind a number of what were sometimes derisively called "Bubblegum Music" hits. Two you will likely recall if you are of sufficient age are Tracy and Sugar, Sugar. Tracy was really all Ron, and was a big hit in 1969. It was released under the artist name of "The Cuff Links". Sugar, Sugar was of course, released by "The Archies", which was a fictional band of cartoon characters from the Archie comic books.
Ron also has worked with Barry Manilow, Cher, Bette Midler and other prominent artists. But there is one record of his that I recall that most people probably don't. Back in 1974, I was a disc jockey at WCUM Radio in Cumberland, Maryland (yep, those were the real call letters back then), and a record put out under his own name came in the mail. It was on the Bell label, and was titled Midnight Show, about a musician who was torn between being on the road and being with the woman he loves. The song was kind of catchy, so I put it into rotation on the air, and it became somewhat of a local hit, although I don't believe it did much nationally.
So now that I hopefully am back in Alan O'Day's good graces and have removed my foot from my mouth, let's just hope Helen Reddy doesn't stop by!
