October 1970

The war was still raging in Vietnam. Richard Nixon was in the White House and the Watergate was still just the name of a high-rise residential hotel in Washington, D.C. The charts were dominated by B. J. Thomas' "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head", the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," Shocking Blue's "Venus," Sly's "Thank You," Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Ray Stevens" "Everything Is Beautiful." Disco, punk and rap were barely gleams in the eyes of their forefathers pop, metal and funk. Everyone was smoking pot and dropping acid; cocaine and Quaaludes were just around the corner. "M.A.S.H." and "Woodstock" were big at the box office. It would be another three years before a singer-songwriter named Bruce Springsteen released his first album. And " Candida ," a song by an interracial trio named Dawn "who didn't even know each other before the recording was made" hit #3 on the Billboard Top 100.

And it wouldn't surprise us if the Boss was a fan of the record. After all, it mirrored his own love of the Latin doo-wop street corner sound of the Drifters and Ben E. King and songs like "Up on The Roof" and "Spanish Harlem." The threesome consisted of a one-time teen idol and Brill Building alum named Tony Orlando, put together with a pair of ex-Motown session singers from Detroit in Louisville, KY-born Telma Louise Hopkins and local native Joyce Vincent Wilson by producers Hank Medress (an ex-member of the Tokens of "Lion Sleeps Tonight" fame) and Dave Appell . Named Dawn after Bell Records boss Wes Farrell's daughter, the band's " Candida " hit the Top 40 in late August and had sold more than a million copies by the end of September.

The record launched a career which would see the trio notch three #1 singles ("Knock Three Times," "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree," "He Don"t Love You [Like I Love You]"), five million-selling singles, six Top Ten hits, two platinum albums, sell nearly 30 million records and nab a pair of American Music Awards and two Grammy nominations along the way. Tony, Telma and Joyce went on to become TV stars in their own weekly network variety show on CBS, "Tony Orlando & Dawn," from 1974-'76. And, like Springsteen "whose 1985 hit "Born In The U.S.A." became an anthem for Vietnam vet "Dawn's chart-topping 1973 smash "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" became a symbol for returning hostages from Vietnam through the 1981 Iranian crisis. If the "70s were about polyester and leather, Tony Orlando & Dawn stood at the center of the decade's pop music, a bubble-gum bridge between the urban a cappella R&B and Spector wall of sound with which they cut their teeth to the nostalgia of ragtime (a precursor of today's swing revival") and the glitz of Vegas-styled dazzle.

Scorned by the critics, a typically self-deprecating Tony Orlando once told Newsweek, "I kept wondering who would listen to that crap," but plenty of people did. Born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassivitis in New York City on April 3, 1944, Tony grew up in tough circumstances, the son of a Greek furrier father and a Puerto Rican immigrant mother. His younger sister, Rhonda Marie, was mentally retarded and Tony Orlando spent much of his childhood caring for her and avoiding the dangers of drugs and alcohol in his working class neighborhood. He would remain close to his sister until her death in 1977.

While a teenager, Tony Orlando began performing and recording demos with local doo-wop groups like the Five Gents in hopes of breaking into the business. Hanging around the legendary Brill Building, the New York-based home of some of the leading pop songwriters of the day, Orlando managed to get one of his tapes to Aldon Music's Don Kirschner , who later went on to host TV's "Rock Concert." Kirschner teamed him up with young, married songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin to record one of their songs, "Halfway to Paradise." After coming out on Epic Records, the record, produced by Kirschner , hit the U. S. charts at #39 in 1960, while the U.K. version by Billy Fury went to #3 in England. Tony Orlando followed with the Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil-penned "Bless You," which reached #15 in the U. S. and #5 in the U.K. in fall'61, while Orlando's last record for Epic, "Happy Times (Are Here To Stay)," peaked at #82 in the States.

Tony Orlando undertook a British tour with Bobby Vee , Clarence Frogman" Henry and others in'62, but by'63, he was making his living in music publishing, first at Robbins, Feist and Miller, than at April-Blackwood, where he worked the catalogs of James Taylor and Laura Nyro under Clive Davis, whose Arista Records would eventually release this "Best Of" more than 30 years later.

It was 1970 when producers Medress and Appell , unhappy with the lead vocalist in a Detroit-based trio approached Tony Orlando to re-record the lead part on a song called " Candida ." The group included a pair of Motown studio singers in Wilson and Hopkins "whose credits included back-up vocals on such records as Marvin Gay's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," Freda Payne's "Band Of Gold" and Isaac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft." Without ever meeting the other two girls, who had recorded their parts in California, Orlando cut the track, thinking it would disappear without a trace. Two months later, he heard the song on the radio, quit his music publishing job and eventually joined Wilson and Hopkins to form Dawn and cut the rest of what became their debut album, " Candida ."

Hot on the heels of " Candida ," which paid tribute to the trio's roots in street corner doo-wop, Latino and Brill Building pop, came "Knock Three Times," a spirited follow-up that has been described as "Ben E. King meets the Ohio Express." Taking off on the tale of neighbors in adjoining apartments communicating their love interest via a series of three knocks on the ceiling ("if you want me") and two on the pipe ("means you ain't gonna show"), the song soared to #1 in early'71 in both the U. S. and U. K. A series of hits followed, including "I Play And Sing," "Summer Sand" and "What Are You Doing Sunday," all of which hit the Top 40, though the album they came from, "Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando," barely grazed the Billboard Top 200 at #178.

The group's third album,'73's " Tuneweaving ," produced the classic "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree," which struck a nerve with an American public caught up in celebrating the return of American POWS from Southeast Asia after Nixon had ended the Vietnam war. The song was written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown, who had also penned "Knock Three Times," "I Play And Sing," "Summer Sand," and subsequent hits, "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose," "Who's In The Strawberry Patch With Sally" and Steppin ' Out ( Gonna Boogie Tonight)." It was based on a true tale of a convince returning home to White Oak, GA, hoping to see a sign his wife still loved him. The song's impact remains strong to this day, with yellow ribbons sprouting up on trees whenever a hostage situation arises.

"The song has taken on a life and a meaning all its own," Tony Orlando boasts, comparing its impact to George M. Cohan's "You're a Grand Old Flag." The song was named Favorite Single, Pop-Rock at the first-ever American Music Awards in 1973 and was nominated for two Grammy Awards "Song of the Year and Best Pop Group Performance" before going on to sell more than six million copies around the world. When Tony Orlando and Dawn performed the song at the 16th annual Grammy Awards, then-CBS programming chief Fred Silverman offered the band a four-week summer variety series, "Tony Orlando and Dawn," which went on to air for two full seasons.

Now international celebrities and TV stars, the newly named Tony Orlando and Dawn had a string of ragtime/big band hits penned by the red-hot team of Levine and Brown that anticipated today's swing revival and cemented Orlando's dream to combine the larger-than-life theatrics of performers like Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra with the old-time charisma of Al Jolson , to fuse vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building and Motown " "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose," "Who's In The Strawberry Patch With Sally" and " Steppin Out ( Gonna Boogie Tonight)," two of which hit the Top Ten. There was one more hit,'75's "Look In My Eyes Pretty Woman," before the group moved with Bell promotion executive Steve Wax to Elektra Records, where they scored with a cover of Jerry Butler's 1960 Top Ten smash, "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)," which turned into the band's third #1 single, selling more than a million copies and going gold.

There were a trio of hits in late'75-'76, with " Mornin ' Beautiful" reaching #14, a cover of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "68 Top Ten hit, " You"re All I Need To Get By," hitting #34 and a faithful version of Sam Cooke's "Cupid" going to #22, but things began to come apart for the trio. In 1977, stung by the deaths of his beloved sister and then his best friend, Freddie Prinze , who committed suicide, Orlando suddenly announced during a performance at "The Music Show" in Cohasset, MA, that "this was my last day as a performer." Admitting he was abusing cocaine and had been close to a nervous breakdown from the demands of doing a weekly variety show, Tony Orlando retired from show business, briefly became a born-again Christian before taking an occasional gig in Las Vegas. Hopkins became a TV actress in ABC- TV's "A New Kind Of Family," then eventually appeared as a regular in "Bosom Buddies," with Tom Hanks, " Gimme A Break" and "Family Matters." Vincent went on to sing back-up with Smokey Robinson.

Tony Orlando recorded a solo album for Casablanca,'79's "Sweets For My Sweet," made his acting debut in the TV movie, "Three Hundred Miles For Stephanie" and guested on "The Bill Cosby Show." In 1981, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" was again in the national consciousness when American hostages are set free after 444 days in captivity, as the U. S. public welcomes them home with yellow ribbons. The only celebrity to get more mileage out of the situation was Ted Koppel , who began his show "Nightline" to cover the crisis in Iran. That same year, Orlando returned to show business when he took over the leading role in the Broadway show, "Barnum," while Jim Dale was on vacation. "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" resurfaced once more in 1990 with the U.S. troops" return home from Desert Storm and the Gulf War, when it was named one of BMI's Most Performed Songs of 1940-1990.

In August'88, Tony Orlando re-teamed with Hopkins and Wilson at Trumps in Atlantic City to perform Dawn hits. "There is a unique feeling with Telma and Joyce that is separate from the music," he told Jet magazine. "That wonderful sense... that rush that only harmony can give you. There is something about those two voices and being that middle voice in that pocket of harmony."

They still do occasional shows together, though Tony Orlando spends most of his time these days performing in his own Yellow Ribbon Music Theater in Branson, MO, which he opened in July'93. Orlando does two shows a night in the 2,000-seat venue, six times a week, for a total of 374 performances a year. "My shows reflect everything I have learned in my 37 years in the business," he told reporter Paul Grein . Orlando is currently married to his second wife, Frannie Amormino , and has two children, a son Jon, by his first marriage, and a daughter, Jenny Rose.

Tony Orlando is realistic about Dawn's legacy, knowing the group was more a Top 40 phenomenon than rock legends. And while no one will ever suggest Tony Orlando & Dawn should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, The Definitive Collection of DAWN featuring Tony Orlando, captures the band in its prime. All the big hit singles are here, sure, but there are other glimpses of the group's legacy "the street corner authenticity of the Drifters" " Vaya Con Dios ," the Dixieland swing of "Gypsy Rose," the'20s ragtime of "Strawberry Patch"... Unabashed in their love of venerable show biz traditions, Tony Orlando & Dawn brought classic R&B, big band swing and ragtime to a mainstream white audience, with an ease and comfort that belied their multi-racial origins. They were an American band.