File photo
Tony Orlando's Hawaii debut will benefit
several nonprofit organizations.

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Tony Orlando to perform
at Aloha Stadium

By Tim Ryan
Star-Bulletin

Tony Orlando, the guy who strutted around on stage and television doing pop songs like "Candida," "Knock Three Times" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon ('Round the Ole Oak Tree)," makes his Hawaii debut Christmas day at the first Jeep Oahu Aloha Bowl/Jeep Oahu Bowl Christmas Football Classic Doubleheader at Aloha Stadium.

Also performing will be actress-singer Tia Carrere, Melveen Leed and child actor/ singer Ryan Rumbaugh.

Carrere will open the bowl halftime show with songs from her latest CD, then will be joined by Leed. Orlando will perform between games, then headline the halftime festivities. He'll be joined by Ryan.

Orlando, who this year is celebrating the 25th anniversary of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" -- the biggest selling record of the 1973 -- is planning a special performance to commemorate the song.

Orlando and the duo Dawn, now long gone, began on TV as a summer replacement for "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour." The trio's variety show became one of the 1970s bigger hits, airing on CBS from 1974 to 76.

Since then, Orlando, who's had five No. 1 hits, has built a career as an all-round entertainer in the tradition of his heroes Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. He starred in Las Vegas, played P.T. Barnum in the Broadway musical "Barnum," and has a string of hits dating to 1961. "Candida" rose to No. 3. Its follow-up, "Knock Three Times" hit No. 1.

A quarter-century after "Tie A Yellow Ribbon," Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis, the Greek-Puerto Rican singer from New York, makes his Hawaii debut.

Orlando currently is one of the biggest stars in Branson, Mo., the mecca of live entertainment where legions of his fans come to see him perform. He headlines "The Talk of the Town Theatre" in a theater he shares with Wayne Newton. Orlando in June was profiled in a VH1 biography, "Behind the Music."

The Jeep Oahu Bowl this year joins the 17th annual Jeep Aloha Bowl for the first college football bowl doubleheader.

Proceeds from the games benefit nonprofit organizations including the Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, United Cerebral Palsy and Muscular Dystrophy Association.

For more information call 947-4141.