American singer Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis, known professionally as Tony Orlando, was born on April 3, 1944, in New York City. He began his musical career at age 15 with the doo-wop group The Five Gents. In 1961, he released his first successful singles "Halfway to Paradise" and "Bless You", which charted in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Orlando's career evolved rapidly; by 1967, he was signed as a general manager for April-Blackwood Music, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. He later became vice president of CBS Music, where he worked with notable artists such as Barry Manilow, James Taylor, and Grateful Dead. In 1970, Orlando recorded "Candida" under the pseudonym Dawn, which reached Number 1 in five countries and topped the Billboard charts in 1971 with "Knock Three Times". The group, now known as Tony Orlando and Dawn, continued to produce hits including "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" (1973) and "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose" (1975), He returned in 2014 with the album Bless You.
