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Tony Orlando kicks off his sixth decade in music and entertainment with a series of new projects, including the release of “Timeless: The Big Hits” (via Time Life) on March 19. “Timeless: The Big Hits” features re-recorded versions of his million-selling songs as well as a bonus track, “America Is My Hometown.” The heartfelt song was co-written by Orlando with multi-GRAMMY Award winner Michael Omartian, who also produced it. Orlando debuted the bonus track on 77 WABC during his weekly radio program, “Saturday Nights with Tony Orlando.”
77 WABC was the first station to play Orlando’s debut single in 1961 when he was only 16. Legendary DJ Cousin Brucie debuted Tony’s first single “Halfway to Paradise” on the station that helped to launch a six-decade career that spanned music, television, and theatre. He has recorded five #1 Gold singles, three Gold albums, two Platinum albums and a string of hit songs including “Candida,” “Knock Three Times,” “Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose,” “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),” and his signature song, the anthem of hope and homecoming, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” one of the biggest-selling singles of all time and Billboard Magazine’s #1 song of the year in 1973.
Each of those tracks, as well as many others appear on “Timeless: The Big Hits” along with his single, “America Is My Hometown.” Orlando explains, “The size of this country is overwhelming, and I was trying to view it from a small-town point of view where you can keep things simple”. “It’s like seeing my brother in Detroit or my sister in San Diego as next-door-neighbors, so you see, America IS my hometown.”
“Saturday Nights with Tony Orlando” airs from 10pm to midnight, is available via livestream and the WABC Mobile App, and has featured Tony’s interviews with such stars as Lionel Richie, Adam Sandler, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Paul Anka, Frankie Valli, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. just to name a few.
