Gummer songs still sing many years later

They call it the right to chews.They are the poparazzi, the gummers, and they speak of something called the gum effect.

As in bubble gum, the music.

It is still stuck to America, possibly more popular than it was around 1969 when “Sugar, Sugar,” “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” and “Chewy, Chewy” gummed up the works for all the sacred rockers like the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

The nation never quite got over the Archies, Ohio Express, Tommy Roe, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, Andy Kim and other artistes who sang of adorable romance in multiple flavors.

The Archies are playing Vegas. Both Ohio Express and the 1910 Fruitgum Company are reunited and touring.

It’s International Bubblegum Music Month, and the Bubblegum Achievement Awards will be presented Friday in Los Angeles, underwritten by — Who else? — but Topps, makers of Bazooka Bubble Gum.

There’s a bubble-gum movie, an orchestral arrangement, a podcast and several jillion Internet sites.

There’s a swell but somewhat hair-raising album of bubble-gum cover songs recorded by headbangers and other assorted performers in the name of, uh, art — not to mention serious bubble-gum compilations, including one from Time-Life.

To date, 14 books have explored bubble-gum music as phenomenon, and yes, the academes have descended, one august source noting: “The defining characteristics of bubblegum pop music include catchy or hummable melodies, simplistic three-chord structure and repetitive ‘riffs’ or hooks.”

The genre has its roots, the source posited, in “pre-rock novelty songs such as ‘Abba Dabba Honeymoon’ and ‘The Hut-Sut Song.’”

Yes, of course. “The Hut-Sut Song.”

Invariably, historians gallop on, citing bubble-gum influence upon everyone from Gene Simmons to Britney Spears.

But Ron Dante knows best.

He was — and is — the lead singer of the Archies, whose “Sugar, Sugar” was the nation’s No. 1 song 36 years ago, triumphing over such industrial-strength rock classics as the Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman.”

The tune, and Mr. Dante’s distinctive voice, have since surfaced in countless commercial jingles, movies and TV shows over the years. And surely proof positive of its spot in the cultural pantheon, “Sugar, Sugar” also can be had as a ring tone for cellular phones.

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