1 The Archies
YouTube Videos Musicales

The Archies, a fictional garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, 
and Jughead Jones (characters from a comic book that was very popular at the time), 
were created by promoter Don Kirshner, who was coming off of a major success as 
the creator of the Monkees, for an animated TV series. 

In late 1967, Kirshner was hired as music supervisor for CBS' new Saturday 
morning cartoon, The Archie Show, which was to feature a new original song 
every week. He immediately brought on producer Jeff Barry, who with Ellie 
Greenwich had formed one of the pre-eminent songwriting teams of the 
girl-group era (Greenwich also sang on several Archies records). 

Barry brought in Ron Dante, an experienced session singer who'd fronted the 
Detergents' novelty parody "Leader of the Laundromat," and Jeannie Thomas as 
the group's female vocalist. When the TV show debuted, it was a hit, and the 
first Archies single, "Bang Shang-a-Lang," nearly made the Top 20 in late 1968.

Shortly thereafter, Barry hired songwriter/backing vocalist Andy Kim, and 
replaced Thomas with Toni Wine. Barry and Kim co-wrote "Sugar, Sugar," which 
became a breakout smash in 1969. It topped the charts for four weeks, sold 
over three million copies in the U.S. alone, and wound up as Billboard's 
number one song of the year. 

The Archies play a variety of contemporary popular music, consistent with the era 
in which the comic is drawn. They seem to have a preference for rock and roll, 
however,Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge (also characters from the comic book) 
later joined the group. 

The roles the teens play in the fictional band were:
(Every member sings vocals)
* Archie - Lead Guitar
* Reggie - Second Guitar (or Bass Guitar see below*)
* Jughead - Drums
* Betty - Tambourine/Percussion/Guitar
* Veronica - Organ/Keyboard
* Hot Dog - Mascot

Meanwhile, the TV show was expanded to a full hour, and Dante enjoyed two  
Top Ten hits at the same time: "Sugar, Sugar," and as lead vocal on the 
Cufflinks' song, "Tracy." 

The follow-up song, "Jingle Jangle," reached the Top Ten, but from there the Archies' 
chart success tailed off quickly. Their last Top 40 hit came in the spring of 1970 with 
"Who's Your Baby?" The same year, Donna Marie replaced Toni Wine. 

The fictional group was so popular that animated musical groups became a fad 
in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Most of these groups played bubblegum 
pop. Often, the cartoon characters of such shows were also teenaged detectives, 
as an attempt to recapture the success of both The Archie Show and Scooby Doo.

These animated groups included The Groovie Goolies, The Hardy Boys, Butch 
Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, The Banana Splits, The Cattanooga Cats, The 
Sugar Bears, The Chan Clan, and The Neptunes, as well as animated versions 
of The Jackson 5 and the Osmond Brothers. One of the more well-known 
examples is Josie and the Pussycats, which was successful both as an 
animated series and as a comic book produced by Archie Comics. Other Archie 
Comics bands from this time included The Bingoes and The Madhouse Glads, but 
neither ever appeared in animated form.

By the end of 1970, Barry left the Archies to pursue other projects. Their 
final Barry-produced single was released in early 1971, "A Summer Prayer for 
Peace," which became a hit in South Africa later that summer. 

Ron Dante embarked on a short-lived solo career before moving into record 
production, and found substantial success as Barry Manilow's producer 
throughout the '70s; he also returned to singing on commercial jingles. Andy 
Kim went on to score a substantial solo hit in 1974 with "Rock Me Gently." 

An interesting but unusual distribution mode for their music was cardboard records 
embossed directly onto the backs of breakfast cereal boxes so that the cardboard 
record could be cut out and played on a turntable (although it should be noted 
that their music was also available on standard issue LPs and 45s).

Some sources say that the Archies are do not have a bass player. And 
sometimes, they are jokingly, compared to the seminal '60s rock band The 
Doors, as the Doors also had no bass player. However, there is some 
controversy over whether Reggie played bass or not. In most drawings, his 
guitar looks identical to Archie's, making him the band's second (or 
co-lead) guitarist. On the other hand, a number of drawings clearly show the 
instrument to have four tuning keys, the most common bass design. However,  
the recordings of the Archies' songs regularly featured a bass player, 
suggesting that Reggie in fact was the bass player. Also, it should be noted 
that for the product description for The Archies Christmas Album, Reggie was 
named as the bass guitarist.

Also the verses of Jingle Jangle are supposedly sung by either Betty or 
Veronica (the only two female members of the fictional group), in reality, 
it was not performed by any female vocalist, rather it was Dante using a 
falsetto voice 6 as evidenced by the lyrics "It's my true heart I'm 
showin'/or my nose would be growin'/you know that it gets longer when I lie."

Dante returned for a 2008 Archies album, The Archies Christmas Party, with 
singers Danielle van Zyl and Kelly-Lynn.