Ronnie Dove

Ronald Eugene Dove was born on 7 September 1935 in Herndon, Virginia, the only son of Fairfax County police sergeant Paul S. Dove and Catherine Pearl Smith Dove. His older sister was Marjorie L. Forrester. Coast Guard service brought him to the Baltimore area, where club stages became his training ground.

While stationed near Baltimore he formed The Belltones and played East Coast clubs for four years. They released Lover Boy on their own label in 1959 and Party Doll on Decca in 1961 without a national breakthrough, then one more single on Jalo before Dove went solo.

Signing with Diamond Records in 1964, Dove scored his first national hit with Say You (number 40) and broke the Top 20 with Right or Wrong. In 1965 he placed five singles on the charts, including One Kiss for Old Times' Sake, A Little Bit of Heaven, I'll Make All Your Dreams Come True, Kiss Away, and When Liking Turns to Loving. Happy Summer Days and Cry followed in 1966-67, the latter bringing an Ed Sullivan Show appearance.

Dove appeared on American Bandstand, Where the Action Is, The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, Nashville Now, and other national and local programmes. In 1966 he hosted The Ronnie Dove Show on East Coast stations; only two episodes survive, with guests including The Drifters and Bobbi Martin, later sold on DVD through his website.

After Diamond's sale to Certron and that label's collapse, Dove moved toward country with Decca in 1971 and later Melodyland, Motown's country imprint. Things reached number 25 on the country chart, his highest country peak. He continued on independent labels through the 1980s and briefly revived Diamond in 1987 for singles that reached the lower country charts.

Dove opened his own Baltimore club so fans could see him through the 1980s and kept performing on the East Coast for decades after returning to the stage in 1991. In a 2012 WBAL interview he called Maryland more home than Virginia and praised the Chesapeake Bay and local friendliness. He lived in Pasadena in later years.

Dove owned the rights to his music catalogue. Compilations such as The Complete Original Chart Hits: 1964-69 (Real Gone Music) kept his Diamond era in print. Digital reissues of Cry and other Diamond albums appeared from 2018 onward. Happy Summer Days featured in a 2019 Amazon commercial. He retired from live performance after a final show on 14 May 2023 at the Dundalk American Legion and released From the Soul in January 2026.

He left show business in 1989 to care for his mother, who died in 1991, then resumed touring. He was married to Marty Dove, who publicly announced his death. Fans and local media remembered him as a durable Baltimore music figure who stayed connected to the circuit that launched him.

Ronnie Dove died on 15 September 2026 at his home in Pasadena, Maryland, under hospice care, at the age of 91. His wife Marty announced the death on Facebook. WMAR 2 News, WBAL, That Eric Alper, and other outlets reported the news. No public cause of death was given in those accounts.

Dove's mid-1960s run of Diamond hits made him one of Baltimore's signature pop voices of the era, and his later country and club work kept him in front of East Coast audiences for more than six decades. Ownership of his masters, digital reissues, and the Amazon revival of Happy Summer Days helped introduce his catalogue to new listeners late in life.