Tony Orlando & Dawn

Tony Orlando and Dawn
Telma Hopkins, Tony Orlando and Joyce Vincent Wilson at the premiere of their television show, 1974.
Background information
Also known as	Dawn Dawn featuring Tony Orlando
Origin	New York City, New York, United States
Genres	Pop
Years active	1970–1977, 1988–1993, 2005, 2015
Labels	Bell, Elektra
Past members	Tony Orlando Telma Hopkins Joyce Vincent Pamela Vincent

Tony Orlando and Dawn is an American pop music group that was popular in the 1970s. Their signature hits include "Candida", "Knock Three Times", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", and "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)".

Tony Orlando was born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis on 3 April 1944. After almost a decade of singing and with only three Top 40 hits, two in 1961 and another in 1969 as the lead singer for the studio group Wind, he had not had any further successes. He stopped singing entirely, and by 1970 he was a retired demo singer. He began publishing music for April-Blackwood Music, a division of Columbia Records, instead.

Then Orlando received "Candida," a song that other producers and singers had turned down. Originally, Orlando was not able to lend his name to the song, as he was working for April-Blackwood and recording under his own name would be a professional conflict of interest. After an insistence by producer Hank Medress that he dub his voice over the male vocals on the original track, the single was released on Bell Records labelled as being performed by the band "Dawn", to protect Orlando's position.

The background singers on the track were Sharon Greane, Linda November, Jay Siegel, and Toni Wine, who co-wrote the song. Phil Margo played drums on the original session, and the arranger was Norman Bergen. After the single hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 (No.1 on the Cashbox Top 100), Orlando wanted to start performing again. The ensemble then recorded the follow-up song "Knock Three Times", which topped the Hot 100 on 23 January - 6 February 1971.