In the late 1960s, The Monkees were one of the biggest bands in the country. Fueled by their hit, self-titled NBC TV show, the band, which featured Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones, set a still-unbroken record when they had four No. 1 albums in one year in 1967.
Under the tutelage of famed music producer Don Kirschner, the music in the earliest of the Monkees’ hits was performed by session musicians, with the handpicked foursome providing vocals. But as their popularity grew, the group, headed by Nesmith, fought Kirschner for creative control of their work and ultimately parted ways with him.
There have been rumors that Kirschner wanted The Monkees to record the bubblegum pop song “Sugar, Sugar,” which would go on to become a massive hit for the fictional comic book band The Archies.
In an interview with Music Radar, Dolenz claimed that the story about “Sugar, Sugar” was true.
“It’s hilarious, isn’t it?” Dolenz said in the 2012 interview. “Don Kirschner presented that as the next Monkee tune. I was going to record it. That’s when Mike Nesmith led the palace revolt, and we fought for the right to have at least some sort of control over the music. I didn’t go to the session – I’d gone to England, and that’s when I met The Beatles. Don Kirschner got fired, but then he recorded the song with The Archies. He said, ‘That way, nobody can talk back to me.’”
“Sugar, Sugar,” written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, was released on the Kirshner Records label in July 1969. Singers Ron Dante and Toni Wine were backed by session musicians for the hit song.
The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1969 and remained at No. 1 for 4 weeks. It also ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 Singles list that year, according to Rolling Stone.