Favorites

Personnel: Ron Dante (guitar); Margo Leduc, Janie Crews (vocals); Dean Rubicek (flute, horns); Ted Perlman (guitar, keyboards, programming); Chuck Crews, Reggie Langendoeffer (guitar); Mark Northam (keyboards, programming); Scott Hitchings, Chris Smith (keyboards); Jarod Davis (bass); Rob Edwardsen (drums).
Includes liner notes by Ron Dante.
Personnel: Margo Leduc, Steve Lively, Dani Knights , Roo Morgan, Janie Crews, Andy Kim, Peggi Blu, Peter Noone (vocals); Ted Perlman (programming).
Arranger: Ted Perlman.
As the voice behind Archies hits like "Sugar, Sugar" or the Cuff Links' "Tracy," the guy singing tons of commercials, and the producer of Barry Manilow's greatest hits, Ron Dante's career in the music business was mostly behind the scenes. Apart from one solo album in 1970, he hadn't released much under his own name until 1999 when Favorites, an album of Dante singing versions of hit songs on the '60s and '70s, was released. He followed it up in 2004 with a second volume of covers called Saturday Night Blast. Both records found Dante in fine, still boyish voice singing over unimaginative but serviceable musical backing. In 2010, Fuel combined tracks from both albums and released Favorites. Dante's versions of the songs won't replace the originals in the hearts of listeners, but they do serve notice that he can sing just about anything convincingly. ~ Tim Sendra