"Sugar, Sugar" | |||||||||||||||||||
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A-side label of original 1969 U.S. vinyl release
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Single by The Archies | |||||||||||||||||||
from the album Everything's Archie | |||||||||||||||||||
B-side | "Melody Hill" | ||||||||||||||||||
Released | May 24, 1969 (Calendar label); Re-released July 1969 (Kirshner label) | ||||||||||||||||||
Format | 7" | ||||||||||||||||||
Recorded | 1969 | ||||||||||||||||||
Length | 2:48 | ||||||||||||||||||
Label | Calendar, Kirshner, RCA | ||||||||||||||||||
Writer(s) | Andy Kim, Jeff Barry | ||||||||||||||||||
Producer(s) | Jeff Barry | ||||||||||||||||||
The Archies singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||||
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"Sugar, Sugar" | ||||
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Single by Wilson Pickett | ||||
from the album Right On | ||||
A-side | "Sugar, Sugar" | |||
B-side | "Cole, Cooke & Redding" | |||
Released | 1970 | |||
Format | 7" | |||
Recorded | 1969 | |||
Length | 3:00 | |||
Label | Atlantic | |||
Writer(s) | Andy Kim, Jeff Barry | |||
Producer(s) | Dave Crawford, Jerry Wexler, Rick Hall, Tom Dowd | |||
Wilson Pickett singles chronology | ||||
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"Sugar, Sugar" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim. It was originally recorded by the Archies, a band formed by a group of fictional teenagers in the television cartoon series The Archie Show. It reached number one in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1969 and stayed there for four weeks. It was also number one on the UK Singles chart in that same year for eight weeks. The song became a hit again in 1970 when rhythm and blues and soul singer Wilson Pickett took it back onto the charts.
"Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies was produced by Jeff Barry, and the song was originally released on the album Everything's Archie. The album is the product of a group of studio musicians managed by Don Kirshner. Ron Dante's lead vocals were accompanied by those of Toni Wine (who sang the line "I'm gonna make your life so sweet"), and Andy Kim. Together they provided the voices of the Archies using multitracking.
The song was initially released in late May 1969, on the Calendar label (the same label as the two previous Archies singles), achieving moderate chart success in the early summer in some radio markets, and was re-released mid-July 1969, on the Kirshner label, whereby it then attained massive success nationwide by late summer/early fall.
Upon its initial release, Kirshner had promotion men play it for radio station execs without telling them the name of the group (due to the disappointing chart performance of the Archies' previous single, "Feelin' So Good (S.k.o.o.b.y-D.o.o.)", which only went to number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts). Only after most of the DJs liked the song were they told that it was performed by a cartoon group. The Archies' hit wound up as one of the biggest (and most unexpected) number-one hits of the year, one of the biggest bubblegum hits of all time, in America thanks partly to association with the hit CBS-TV Saturday morning cartoon series.