Tony Orlando

Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis (born April 3, 1944), known professionally as Tony Orlando, is an American singer, songwriter, producer, music executive, and actor, known for the group Tony Orlando and Dawn and their 1970s hits. Orlando formed the doowop group The Five Gents in 1959 at the age of 15, with whom he recorded demos, and got the attention of music publisher and producer Don Kirshner. At the age of 17, in 1961, Orlando had his first hit with the song "Ding Dong" on the MILO record label. Kirshner hired him to write songs at 1650 Broadway, Manhattan as part New York's thriving Brill Building songwriting community, along with other songwriters Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Toni Wine, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, and Tom and Jerry, who didn't make it in the office until they later changed their name to Simon and Garfunkel. Orlando was also hired to sing on songwriter demos, and singles released with Orlando as a solo artist began to hit the charts in the US and the UK beginning in 1961 with "Halfway to Paradise" and "Bless You" when he was 16. Orlando continued as a solo artist and also became a producer himself, as well as a successful music executive in the late 1960s. He was hired by Clive Davis as the general manager of Columbia Records' publishing imprint, April-Blackwood Music in 1967, and by the late 1960s had been promoted to vice-president of Columbia/CBS Music. In 1969, Orlando signed Barry Manilow to his first recording contract with Bell Records, co-writing with him and producing Manilow's earliest tracks. He also worked with other artists, such as The Yardbirds, James Taylor, Grateful Dead, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Laura Nyro. He recorded "Candida" as lead vocalist under the pseudonym "Dawn" in 1970, and when the song became an international number-one hit, he began to use his name in the group becoming "Dawn featuring Tony Orlando" and then "Tony Orlando and Dawn". The group had 19 other top 40 hits, including "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", the top-selling hit of 1973 and one of the biggest selling singles of all time. The group also had a hit variety program, The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show on CBS from 1973 to 1977. They then broke up in 1978. In 1993 he opened the Tony Orlando Yellow Ribbon Music Theatre in Branson, Missouri. He ended his act there in 2013.