Sixties Sensation: The Tribe Goes Beatles and Beyond

Beatles tribute bands are not uncommon. Heck, one of them, simply named Yesterday, performed at SOhO in mid-September, and another one known as Sgt. Pepper will be playing this Sunday afternoon, October 4, at the Avocado Festival in Carpinteria. 

But make no mistake, the “Orchestrated Tribute to The Beatles” benefit concert at the Arlington Theatre on Saturday, October 17, is nowhere near your run-of-the-mill tribute to the British band many still consider the greatest of all time. For one thing, nobody will be dressing up in Beatles outfits, and nobody on stage will be trying to sound like John, Paul, George or Ringo. Indeed, the show is the second annual event largely put together by The Tribe, a collective of Los Angeles-based professional musicians featuring a rotation of stellar singers and guests. The Tribe plays artist-or-era-specific concerts all around the region in support of nonprofits, and their upcoming appearance will be formatted similarly to last year’s wildly successful, sold-out Brian Wilson tribute at the Granada last September. 

Just like last year, The Tribe serves as the house band behind a slew of special guests, who will join the group’s singers and musicians in performing nearly all of the songs from two iconic Beatles albums: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which always gets lots of attention, and Magical Mystery Tour, which generally doesn’t get this degree of love. 

“It’s actually one of my favorite albums,” explained The Tribe’s drummer and the concert’s producer, Kevin Wachs. “It was the album I remember most from when I first started getting into pop music. Most of those tracks from Magical Mystery Tour were singles – “Strawberry Fields,” “Penny Lane” – so I’d hear them all the time on KHJ Boss Radio.”

Perhaps even more significantly, the songs on Tour map well to the varied current iteration of The Tribe (co-producer Lauri Reimer, Christena Rich, et al.) and guests, which include several female singers, among them Carly Smithson (American Idol) and Jean Fogelberg (Dan’s widow, who grew up in Lompoc), as well as Santa Barbara locals David Pack (the original lead vocalist and guitarist with Ambrosia) and Justin Fox (Dishwalla), among others, including special surprise guests. 

“They are really interesting songs and diverse in style for our singers to make their own,” Wachs said. “This is not a Beatles impersonation band. We want our singers to have a certain amount of liberty. Just the fact that half the songs are being sung by women immediately means that it’s going to have a different spin on it.”

To be clear, The Tribe isn’t turning “All You Need is Love” into a reggae groove. The changes are just enough to make things interesting. 

“You’ll recognize them, but it’s definitely not sounding exactly like the records. We don’t want them to.” 

Speaking of “All You Need is Love,” that song will have “a cast of thousands” serving as the singers, as the full slate of performers on stage will be accompanied by the audience, who will be specially invited to sing along on the repetitive chorus of the joyous tune. 

“Actually, we hope everybody sings along to everything that they know, which is going to be almost everything when you think about it,” Wachs said.

Adding to the attraction, as the title of the show indicates, The Tribe has also arranged for a large majority of the Beatles tunes to be orchestrated, adding all the flavors you’d expect to the big hits (piccolo and flugelhorn on “Penny Lane;” clarinet on “When I’m Sixty-Four”), and strings all over the place. As with last year’s Wilson tribute, a subset of about a dozen musicians from The Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara will be the orchestra, with Adam Phillips not only conducting but, new this year, stepping to the front of the stage to offer lead vocals on a song or two.

“Last year, we didn’t know he sang,” Wachs explained. “He’s got a great voice!” 

Further setting this year’s concert apart from 2025’s Wilson tribute, there will be an entirely separate set that gives the show its subtitle “Plus Hits of the ‘60s,” a dozen or so additional songs from the era that many folks are also certain to recognize. But it won’t just be The Tribe playing them. 

The show opens with a four-song set from the ‘60s psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock, including, of course, “Incense & Peppermints.” Also on the bill: Jay & the Americans (“This Magic Moment”), Ron Dante of The Archies (“Sugar, Sugar”), Dennis Tufano, the original lead singer of The Buckinghams (“Kind of a Drag”), Tom Garrett of The Classics IV (“Spooky”), Darren Dowler of Paul Revere & the Raiders (“Kicks”). Each will offer up at least two songs, and some of them will also be part of the Beatles tribute portion. 

Turns out all of them are American bands, serving to offset the British Invasion Beatles sections. 

“I didn’t even realize that,” Wachs said. “I just knew even with two Beatles albums, it was only about an hour’s worth of music.”

Meanwhile, the evening will be co-hosted by Santa Barbara radio personality Catherine Remak (K-LITE 101.7), and Chris Carter of Los Angeles radio’s “Breakfast with the Beatles.” 

Wachs took pains to put a lot of attention on the concert’s beneficiaries, as the whole reason for the organization is chiefly fundraising efforts for local nonprofits. 

The largesse from this year’s concert will be split between Adam’s Angels – a compassionate group of volunteers extending help to our community members in need, including those experiencing hardship, homelessness, or high-risk isolation – and Santa Barbara Humane, a nonprofit animal welfare organization offering pet adoption, low-cost vet care, behavior training, and more. 

“They’ll both have some time to talk about what they do and where the money goes,” Wachs said. “We have a lot of fun doing the show, but the object of the game here is to raise money for the nonprofits. 

Which is why there’s also a silent auction whose unique items include a guitar signed by locally-raised star Katy Perry, and another autographed by global superstar Taylor Swift. 

You won’t find those at the Avo Fest. 

Earl Minnis, in association with Rock Cellar Productions and the Get Together Foundation, presents “An Orchestrated Tribute to The Beatles, plus Hits of the 60s” at the Arlington Theatre at 8 pm on Saturday, October 17. Visit www.arlingtontheatresb.com for tickets, and https://rockcellarproductions.com/orchestrated-beatles for more information.

Ron Dante Pours a Little Sugar on it

The Archies never existed as a real band, but only as a studio session ensemble co-created by Don Kirshner and Jeff Barry. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have an actual lead singer, even if nobody knew Ron Dante’s name. The Staten Island-born Dante was the flesh-and-blood lead vocalist for all the songs heard on the animated comic strip-based TV show’s multi-year run, singing on more than 100 tracks overall, often overdubbing his voice multiple times for both lead melodies and lush background harmonies. 

That includes “Sugar, Sugar,” a massive global smash that spent four consecutive weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100, overtaking hits by the Beatles and Rolling Stones along the way to being named the No. 1 overall song of 1969. “Sugar, Sugar” also had a honey of a time overseas, enjoying an eight-week run at the top in the UK. 

What’s even more incredible is that “Sugar, Sugar” – written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim (“Rock Me Gently) – became so popular without anyone ever having performed the song live on a stage, a record that still stands. And the song remains an actual golden oldie known to all, no matter what generation you come from; probably even more recognizable than some of the Beatles’ hits. 

“Yeah, I mean it’s crazy,” said Dante, who in ‘68 got a last second audition for the gig through already knowing both Kirshner, who had signed him as a teenager for his music publishing company, and producer Barry, who he knew from singing background on Neil Diamond’s first record. Tracks had been recorded, but they hadn’t yet found someone to sing lead when Dante checked in at the studio, laid down the vocal for “Bang-Shang-A-Lang,” and got hired on the spot. “‘Bang-Shang-A-Lang’ was the first single, but “Sugar, Sugar” was a huge hit all over the world. Every Top-40 radio station was playing it every hour. It was quite a kick as the singer.”

The Archies were the epitome of what was pejoratively referred to as “Bubblegum Pop,” although “Sugar, Sugar” was also distributed/printed on an actual cereal box, Post Super Sugar Crisp. (Cereal Pop just doesn’t have the same ring.) 

Dante doesn’t care. 

“I embrace it! We were making music for young kids, nine to 13-year-olds. That was the market. We weren’t trying to compete with the other big rock groups at the time, the Stones or Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix or anybody like that. So we were very happy to do that kind of music ,and I was overjoyed that it was a success. And for a lot of kids, the first rock and roll song they ever heard was when they cut that cardboard record out and played “Sugar, Sugar.” It was on 10 million boxes.” 

Also, Dante pointed out, the musicians recording the tracks in the studio were no slouches but among the biggest session players in New York, and Barry – the co-songwriter behind “Be My Baby,” “Hanky Panky,” “Da Doo Run Run,” and dozens of other absolutely iconic hits of the era who has lived in Montecito for decades – was a consummate producer. 

“I watched him working for hours on “Sugar, Sugar” just on the tempo and the bass and drums,” Dante said. “There’s that different rhythm part and he caressed it.” 

The Archies wasn’t the only ‘60s hit Dante sang. He also was the only vocalist on the song “Tracy” attributed to a different studio-only band called the Cuff Links, with the producers overdubbing his vocals and having him add harmonies to make it sound like a group. 

“I did it as a lark. I was trying to imitate the Grassroots or the Association. I guess I did a good job because it was a pretty big hit.” 

Indeed, the two songs were on the chart simultaneously in 1969, neither of which Dante ever had a chance to sing live in front of an audience until decades later, long after he produced Barry Manilow’s first nine studio albums with many hits, including “Mandy,” and went on to work with many other big names as a studio singer and/or producer. (The Gold Record hangs right next to the one he has for “Sugar, Sugar.”) 

The last quarter-century has seen Dante out on the road with oldies shows, including the “Happy Together” tour where he does double duty as one of the lead singers in The Turtles. 

He’ll be singing both “Sugar, Sugar” and “Tracy” at the Arlington – which will, remarkably, represent his city of Santa Barbara debut – in the “Hits of the ‘60s” portion of the concert. He’ll also serve as lead vocalist with The Tribe for “Penny Lane” during the main “An Orchestrated Tribute to the Beatles” set. 

“It’s such a fun song. It’s going to be a blast,” Dante said.