In The 1970s Dawn

The lead singer was Tony Orlando who was born as Michael Anthony Orland Cassavitis in 1944 and had a few small hits in the 1960s. The first hit in the 1970s was called Candida which Tony wanted to sing as a solo, but contractual problems prevented this so it was performed under the group Dawn and was written by Toni Wine and Irvine Levine, Toni was also on backing for Willie Nelson's Always On My Mind. Irwin died in 1997.

The B side to Candida was Knock Three Times, which also became the group’s next single release which became a UK and U.S. number one in 1970.


Moving on to 1971  and Dawn had more hits three more singles , which were I Play And Sing, Summer Sand both reasonable U.S. hits. The third single that year was a No. 3 hit in the UK called What Are you Doing Sunday?

1972 and another batch of singles released and three failed to really chart.The following year of 1973 saw the band produce their biggest hit called Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree,a global No. 1 and the song was  was inspired bya 19th century tradition of ladies wearing a yellow ribbon to keep loved ones in mind whilst they were away at war.

The single sold over 3 million  in just three weeks and was the subject to court cases that were later dropped. Dawn had several more hits in the 1970s including Say Have You Seen My Sweet Gypsey Rose, Who’s In The Strawberry Patch With Sally? And many more. In fact in the U.S. Dawn had fourteen top twenty hits.